The frenzy of tungsten carbide price fluctuations is sweeping across the entire industry, especially for enterprises that profit from tungsten carbide products—including cutting tools, mining equipment, and any heavy machinery.
In 2025, the quotation of tungsten carbide on the London Metal Exchange (LME) has soared like a lit match. This not only triggers a chain reaction in the global supply chain but also forces enterprises to fundamentally re-examine their resource strategies. Combining the latest market data and industry trends, this article will conduct an in-depth analysis of the causes, impacts, and future solutions of this critical industrial material at this crucial moment.
At the beginning of 2025, the benchmark price of tungsten was still stable at approximately $300 per 10 kilograms. Within just a few months, the relevant quotation on the London Metal Exchange (LME) has soared to $535 – $550 per 10 kilograms, and the Chinese offshore price has even reached a high level of $580 – $600 per 10 kilograms. As the core intermediate in the industrial chain, ammonium paratungstate (APT) has seen a price increase of 80% – 95% since the beginning of the year.
Tungsten concentrate, the foundation of the supply chain, has not only witnessed a year-on-year price increase of over 30% but also nearly doubled compared with the beginning of the year, reaching about $500 per 10 kilograms. The quotation in the European market has also been pushed to the range of $420 – $435 per 10 kilograms.
This cost pressure is spreading layer by layer along the industrial chain: from tungsten powder to sintered tungsten carbide components, the price of each link has increased simultaneously. For manufacturers and end-users, the tungsten price has nearly doubled in a very short period, putting many enterprises that rely on fixed-price contracts in a dilemma of “losing money on every order”, and their operating profit margins have suffered a devastating blow.
Product
Specification/WO₃ Content
PRICE (USD, EXW XIAMEN, CHINA)
Ferro Tungsten
≥70%
54,647.90 USD/Tonne
Ammonium Paratungstate
≥88.5%
700.70 USD/MTU
Tungsten Powder
≥99.7%
92.00 USD/KG
Tungsten Carbide Powder
≥99.7%
89.90 USD/KG
1#Tungsten Bar
≥99.95%
96.00 USD/KG
Tungsten Wire for Diamond Wire Saws
30-45μm
2.70 USD/KM
Tungsten Price Trend from January to October 24, 2025
The Reasons Behind the Tungsten Carbide Price Surge
Multiple interrelated and powerful factors have intertwined to form this “perfect storm” in the tungsten market, whose intensity far exceeds any previous price fluctuation.
Supply Chain Constraints: Supply Tightening Under Geopolitical Games
Structural Disruption of the Global Supply Chain
China’s leading position in the field of tungsten resources is irreplaceable. In 2023, China’s tungsten output was approximately 63,000 tons, accounting for 81% of the global total; in 2024, the output rose to 67,000 tons, and its share still exceeded 80%.
This pattern of “dominance by one country” already hides risks, and the geopolitical games in 2025 have completely triggered them. In the first quarter of 2025, China reduced the tungsten ore quota by approximately 6.5%. Combined with the closure of backward production capacity due to environmental protection rectification, the growth rate of domestic output has slowed down significantly.
However, the production capacity in other regions of the world is completely unable to fill the gap: although Australia has abundant reserves, there are few active mines; the Panasqueira Mine in Portugal only produced 500 tons in 2022, and even the plan to extend its service life by 20 years cannot solve the immediate problem; the output of the Nui Phao Mine in Vietnam decreased by 15% in 2024, and the ore grade continues to decline; super-large mines such as Tyrnyauz in Russia are difficult to conduct normal trade due to Western sanctions. The rigid constraints of the supply chain have thus reached their peak.
The Trigger of Trade Frictions
In September 2024, the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced a 25% tariff increase on Chinese products such as tungsten concentrate, tungsten oxide, and tungsten carbide, which officially took effect on January 1, 2025. In response, the Ministry of Commerce of China and the General Administration of Customs jointly issued an announcement on February 4, 2025, including tungsten compounds in the export control list and requiring permits for all exports.
In April of the same year, the Trump administration further increased the tariff on China from 34% to 84. China immediately retaliated by increasing the tariff on the United States to 125% and imposing a tungsten export ban. A series of policy combinations have directly cut off the original trade links, and the international market has suddenly fallen into a supply vacuum.
Strong Demand Leading to the Tungsten Carbide Price Increase
The continuous expansion on the demand side has further exacerbated the imbalance between supply and demand. Due to its unparalleled hardness, wear resistance, and high-temperature resistance, tungsten carbide is irreplaceable in many fields, and its demand is fully penetrating from traditional industries to emerging technology fields.
Traditional Industrial Fields
The manufacturing and metal processing industries consume over 10 billion tungsten carbide cutting tools annually; in the drill bits of the mining industry, the proportion of tungsten carbide wear-resistant components reaches more than 70%. The oil and gas industry is also a key demand side – modern polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) drill bits rely on tungsten carbide substrates, and each deep well requires dozens of kilograms of tungsten carbide for drill bit consumption.
Armor-Piercing Bullets Used in the Russia-Ukraine War
Military and Emerging Technology Fields
In the military field, the tungsten content in modern armor-piercing bullets is as high as 90% – 98%. Its density and hardness make it the core material of anti-tank weapons. The ammunition shortage crisis on the Ukrainian front has already sounded the alarm for this: European factories are operating at full capacity to produce artillery shells, but the production capacity has been halved due to the shortage of tungsten carbide alloy bars.
After German engineers were forced to reduce the tungsten content, the penetration of armor-piercing bullets decreased and their service life was shortened, and the test reports were rejected many times. NATO senior officials have to postpone the delivery date of new contracts by three years, and the EU’s commitment to support one million artillery shells cannot be fulfilled at all.
Civil High-Tech Fields
The cutting of battery tabs in electric vehicles, the precision processing of photovoltaic silicon wafers, and the wiring process of semiconductors all have higher requirements for tungsten carbide tools. In 2025, the global sales volume of electric vehicles is expected to exceed 40 million, and the installed capacity of photovoltaics will increase by 30% year-on-year. All these have been converted into rigid demand for tungsten carbide. The collision between the sharp reduction in supply and the surge in demand has made the tungsten carbide price surge inevitable.
The All-Round Impact of the “Shortage” on the Global Industry
Manufacturing Industry
The raw material cost of tungsten carbide tool manufacturers has nearly doubled, and they are facing a “dilemma”: if they absorb the cost by themselves, the profit margin will drop sharply from 15% to less than 3%, or even fall into losses; if they pass on the cost, the risk of customer loss will increase sharply. Sandvik, one of the world’s largest tungsten carbide manufacturers, has announced that the average price of tool products will increase by 22% in the second quarter of 2025, but it is still difficult to cover the increase in tungsten carbide prices. Small and medium-sized manufacturers are even more embarrassed. About 30% of small and medium-sized tool enterprises in Europe have been forced to suspend receiving orders due to supply shortages or high costs.
Oil and Gas and Mining Industries
In oil and gas extraction, tungsten carbide accounts for more than 40% of the drill bit cost. The increase in tungsten carbide prices directly increases the extraction cost of each shale oil well by $120,000 – $180,000. Devon Energy, an American shale oil producer, has postponed 5 shale well projects, stating bluntly that “the increase in drill bit costs has made some low-yield wells lose their economic value”. The mining industry is also under pressure. According to a report by BHP Billiton in Australia, the procurement cost of wear-resistant components for its iron ore mining has increased by 68% year-on-year, forcing some open-pit mines to slow down the mining pace.
Military Field
A report disclosed by the U.S. Department of Defense in May 2025 shows that the U.S. Army’s armor-piercing bullet inventory can only meet the combat needs for 90 days, which is 40% less than expected. Military enterprises in many European countries have revealed that the artillery shell production capacity can only reach 35% of the demand, and the core bottleneck is the supply of tungsten carbide.
Soldiers on the front line have directly felt the impact: the number of armor-piercing bullets in the ammunition boxes on the Ukrainian front is often more than 30% less than promised, and it has become normal for transport ships to wait for tungsten alloy raw materials to be loaded at the port.
The chain reaction in the terminal industry is emerging. The tool procurement cost of mechanical processing workshops has increased by 50%, and the delivery period has been extended from 2 weeks to 2 months; the maintenance cost of drilling equipment of construction companies has increased by 40%, and some infrastructure projects with fixed total prices have already suffered losses. This impact is spreading from the production side to the consumer side, and may eventually push up the overall price level of global industrial products.
Exploration and Practice of Adaptation and Alternative Solutions
Faced with this crisis, global industry players have not waited idly, but have explored diversified response paths under the guidance of policies and market drivers.
The Difficult Process of “De-Single-Source” of Tungsten Carbide Materials
Countries have launched diversified supply chain strategies in an attempt to reduce dependence on a single source.
The United States
In March 2025, the U.S. Department of Defense signed a 15-year development agreement with Almonty Corporation to support the restart of the Sandong mining area in South Korea; in May, it signed a three-year supply contract with a tungsten parts factory in Wyoming to ensure the supply of tungsten oxide raw materials for national defense.
Although the Sandong Mine claimed to complete the construction and ship goods in August, the industry generally questioned its cost competitiveness – the mining cost of similar mines in China is only 60% of that of the Sandong Mine.
The U.S. Geological Survey has also marked 100 potential tungsten mining sites in 12 states. Small-scale projects in Nevada, Idaho, and other places have entered the feasibility study stage, and Nevada received funding from the Department of Defense in July to accelerate the evaluation of local mining possibilities.
Europe
Europe has adopted a “decentralized procurement” strategy. The European Commission launched the “Critical Raw Materials Alliance” plan, aiming to increase the proportion of tungsten supply from non-Chinese sources from the current 19% to 40% by 2030. Germany’s Bosch Group signed a long-term agreement with Portugal’s Almonty Corporation to exclusively sell all its output in the next five years; France’s Airbus cooperated with a Canadian exploration company to fund its tungsten exploration project in Quebec. However, the industry consensus is that it takes an average of 7 – 10 years for a new mine to go from exploration to stable production, which is difficult to ease the supply tension in the short term.
Accelerated Implementation of Tungsten Carbide Recycling and Circulation
The recyclability rate of tungsten is as high as 95% or more, and the performance of recycled tungsten is basically the same as that of primary tungsten. Against the background of soaring tungsten carbide prices, the economic value of recycling has become prominent. Data shows that the global market size of recycled tungsten carbide powder was approximately $97 million in 2024, and it is expected to reach $139 million by 2031, with a compound annual growth rate of 5.3% from 2025 to 2031.
Enterprises and governments have increased their investment in recycling. The U.S. Department of Defense launched the “Tungsten Recycling Incentive Program”, providing a subsidy of $2,000 per ton to recycling enterprises; Germany’s Volkswagen set up a dedicated recycling line in its electric vehicle factory to recycle tungsten carbide chips generated in battery processing; relying on a sound industrial chain, China has established a complete system from waste tool recycling, crushing, purification to remanufacturing.
The output of recycled tungsten in China is expected to exceed 10,000 tons in 2025, accounting for 15% of domestic consumption. The application of advanced recycling technology has further improved efficiency. The “low-temperature crushing – chemical purification” process developed by Sandvik in Sweden has shortened the recycling cycle from the traditional 7 days to 24 hours and increased the recycling rate to 98%.
Efficiency Improvement and Technological Innovation
Increasing Revenue and Reducing Expenditure
Manufacturers have optimized product designs one after another to reduce the consumption of tungsten carbide on the premise of ensuring performance: the new generation of cutting tools launched by Sandvik adopts a gradient structure, the tungsten carbide content on the surface remains unchanged, and the core is replaced with cheap alloys. The material consumption is reduced by 20% while the service life remains the same.
Improvements in production processes are also making efforts. A Chinese tungsten carbide enterprise has increased the product yield from 85% to 92% by optimizing sintering parameters, which has indirectly reduced the consumption of raw materials.
Advancement of Alternative Material R&D
In some low-demand scenarios, the application proportion of ceramic tools and high-speed steel tools has increased; in the field of oil and gas drilling, enterprises have begun to test silicon carbide ceramics to replace some tungsten carbide components. However, the replacement in high-end fields is still difficult. For tools used in semiconductor wafer cutting, there is currently no material that can replace the precision and wear resistance of tungsten carbide. As the director of material R&D at Germany’s Bosch Group said: “Alternative materials can solve 10% of the problems, but 90% of the core needs still cannot do without tungsten carbide.”
Semiconductor Wafer Cutting
Policy Support
Announcement No. 10 of 2025 issued by the Ministry of Commerce of China clearly states that applications for the export of civil tungsten products can usually be approved, avoiding the excessive impact of “one-size-fits-all” control on the industry. Enterprises have maintained rational production. The global tungsten-molybdenum production index in August 2025 fell by 8.5 percentage points compared with July, avoiding market chaos caused by blind capacity expansion.
Future Outlook for Tungsten Carbide Prices
Looking forward to the market after 2025, the industry has reached a consensus: the tungsten carbide price will bid farewell to the low-cost era and enter a new normal of high-level operation.
In the short term, extreme tungsten carbide price fluctuations may ease slightly, but the high-level trend is difficult to change. With the normalization of China’s export control policies and the initial release of U.S. domestic production capacity, market panic will gradually subside, and tungsten carbide prices may fall by 10% – 15% from the peak. However, the U.S. Geological Survey predicts that the global supply gap will still remain at about 12% in 2026, the core contradiction of supply-demand imbalance has not changed, and it is difficult for prices to return to the level before 2025.
In the long term, structural factors will support stable prices at a high level. On the supply side, problems such as the long commissioning cycle of new mines and the increase in environmental protection costs will exist for a long time; on the demand side, the demand growth in emerging fields such as electric vehicles and renewable energy is irreversible.
Analysts generally predict that from 2026 to 2030, the average tungsten carbide price will stabilize in the range of $450 – $500 per 10 kilograms, which is more than 50% higher than the 2024 level. This means that enterprises must completely adjust their cost structures and include high-priced tungsten carbide in their long-term budget planning.
A more far-reaching impact lies in the restructuring of the supply chain pattern. The old model of “production in China + global consumption” is being broken, and a new pattern of “led by China + multi-polar supplementary” will be formed in the future. The domestic production capacity in the United States, Europe, and other regions will gradually increase, but limited by resource endowments and costs, their share is difficult to exceed 20%. The improvement of the recycling system will become an important supplement. It is expected that the proportion of global recycled tungsten will reach 25% by 2030, becoming a “ballast stone” for stabilizing the market.
Conclusion
The sharp rise in tungsten carbide prices in 2025 is not only a market event but also a “wake-up call” for the global industrial sector. For enterprises that rely on tungsten carbide, the diversification of the supply chain cannot stay at the level of slogans but needs to be transformed into long-term resource layout; recycling should be upgraded from an auxiliary means to a core procurement channel; technological innovation should focus on the efficient use of materials and the breakthrough of alternative solutions.
This “great shortage” is both a crisis and an opportunity for transformation. It promotes the global industry to shift from “low-cost dependence” to “high-quality resilience”, and accelerates the development of the circular economy and the restructuring of the supply chain. As industry experts said: “The tungsten carbide price storm in 2025 will eventually pass, but the supply chain changes it leaves behind will last for ten years – resource security has become the ultimate competitive advantage in the modern industrial era.”
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