Tungsten's Concentration Number Matches Its Headline Risk
Unlike several materials in this series, tungsten's HHI and its real, exercised export-control risk point in exactly the same direction.
Several materials in this series show a concentration number that disagrees with the price trend, magnesium and silicon’s extreme HHI alongside falling prices, covered on their own economics pages. Tungsten is the case where the two line up cleanly.
Running the index on tungsten’s real 2024 shares (China roughly 79%, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, North Korea, and Russia each in the low single digits) gives an HHI of roughly 6,278, among the highest computed anywhere in this series, and unlike magnesium or silicon, the price has moved in the direction this number would predict, roughly doubling as China tightened export controls in 2025.
Why tungsten is the cleanest case study in this series
Because tungsten’s demand base, covered on this material’s application-wise page, is comparatively stable and industrial rather than subject to the kind of rapid battery-driven boom-bust cycles documented for lithium or graphite, its price is less confounded by independent demand swings, making the concentration-to-price relationship unusually easy to observe directly.
Sources: production shares and price history reference this project’s own published production and price data (USGS); HHI is computed directly from that data; the 2,500 HHI threshold is the US Department of Justice/FTC Horizontal Merger Guidelines convention.