Tungsten's 2025 Export Controls Already Doubled the Price
China's 2025 export licensing restrictions on tungsten are a real, exercised example of the concentration risk this series discusses theoretically elsewhere.
Tungsten offers this series’ clearest, most recent example of concentration risk actually materialising, not staying theoretical.
A named conflict mineral, same group as tin
Tungsten is one of the four metals named in the Dodd-Frank Act’s 3TG conflict minerals provisions, covered on tin’s financing page, alongside tin, tantalum, and gold, a real, current regulatory framework, not a hypothetical designation.
Why 2025 is the example worth naming specifically
China’s 2025 export licensing restrictions on tungsten, a real, documented policy action, contributed directly to the price roughly doubling within the year, the clearest recent case in this series of an export control measurably moving a material’s price in real time, rather than the more hypothetical framing this series uses for several other materials’ policy risk.
Sources: concentration figures and the 2025 export control episode reference the production and price data elsewhere on this site and widely reported industry coverage (Reuters, USGS); conflict minerals framework reflects the published text of the Dodd-Frank Act.