Tungsten Producers & Recyclers - Pricing, Supply Chain & Compliance

Last week I was in Berlin at the ITIA International Tungsten Conference — a few shifts I'm watching closely coming out of it: 1. Price divergence is widening — fast. China's export controls are creating a clear "two-track market": concentrate, APT, and powder are repricing upstream in lockstep, while downstream carbide makers absorb the squeeze. Supply chain strategy is no longer a procurement detail — it's a board-level conversation. 2. The upstream concentrate market is starving for an independent pricing benchmark. Information asymmetry remains the norm. Miners, converters, traders — everyone is essentially negotiating in the dark. Both sides want a transparent, third-party reference price to anchor long-term contracts and discipline spot trades. 3. Compliance is reshaping the map — though the final outcome is still an open question. RMI and similar schemes are now front-of-mind for European and U.S. buyers. Chinese suppliers aren't standing still — many are stepping up audit work and traceability upgrades. The end state is still unclear, and that uncertainty is keeping Western procurement teams cautious. Honest takeaway: the bottleneck has moved downstream, not upstream. Demand for tungsten is intact. What the market is missing is price transparency and compliant supply. Time was tight, so I couldn't meet everyone I wanted to face-to-face. If you're working on tungsten — mining, APT, powder, cemented carbide, or scrap recycling — and want to dig into pricing, supply chain, or compliance, drop me a line. Happy to set up a virtual meeting. 📧 [email redacted] #ITIA #Tungsten #APT #CementedCarbide #CriticalMinerals #SupplyChain #RareMetals #Mining #CommodityMarkets #PriceDiscovery #ResponsibleSourcing #Berlin