The international tungsten market maintained high prices as supply chain shortages due to China's export controls were unlikely to be effectively alleviated in the short term, leading to a deeper restructuring of the global tungsten industry chain.
The latest European APT price stands at USD 2,900-3,180/mtu (equivalent to RMB 1.741-1.909 million/ton), down 3.2% from its peak, up 230.4% in 2026. The latest European ferrotungsten price is USD 200-230/kg W (equivalent to RMB 950,000-1,092,000/ton), down 33.9% from its peak but up 56.4% in 2026.
According to data compiled by China Tungsten Online from the General Administration of Customs, apart from direct exports of 16 tons of tungsten hexafluoride in March, China exported zero quantities of metallic tungsten powder, tungsten oxide, and other electronic specialty gases and military-related products to Japan for three consecutive months from February to April 2026. According to media reports, against this backdrop, leading Japanese electronic specialty gas companies Kanto Denka and Central Glass have successively issued market warnings, indicating that due to limited supply of key raw materials, their electronic specialty gas businesses, such as tungsten hexafluoride, may reduce or even halt production starting July 1st. This means that Japan's semiconductor materials system, which has long relied heavily on Chinese tungsten raw material supplies, is experiencing for the first time the pressure from critical mineral supply chain security issues. However, data also indicates that to alleviate these pressures, Japan has actively increased its imports of tungsten products from Europe, the United States, and other regions.
The impact of this event has transcended the purely trade level. From a practical perspective, my country's control over key mineral resources has already demonstrated a strong restraining effect on specific countries, industries, and time windows. In the future, the use of this resource tool cannot be ruled out as either a phased relaxation or a long-term, precise, or even expanded application. For high-end manufacturing industries that heavily rely on stable supplies, the continuity and predictability of raw material supply are often more important than price itself.
From an industrial competition perspective, this change presents both challenges and opportunities. For a long time, European, American, and Japanese companies have dominated the high-end tungsten materials, electronic specialty gases, and precision products sectors thanks to their first-mover advantage, while Chinese companies have largely remained at the resource and primary processing stages. Now, the logic of global supply chain security is being restructured, and downstream customers are placing significantly higher demands on supply stability, beginning to re-evaluate the comprehensive advantages of Chinese companies in resource security, cost control, and rapid response. This not only creates a new window for Chinese companies in the tungsten hexafluoride, tungsten powder, cemented carbide, and cutting tool industries to gain international market share, but also provides an unprecedented strategic opportunity for Chinese companies to narrow the technological and market gap with leading Western companies, and even achieve partial surpassing.
