China, the leading producer of just about everything, accounts for some 80% of the world’s output of tungsten. Because the metal is so hard most of it is used to make tools but new applications have appeared of late putting strain on suppliers to keep up. Two major events made a bad situation worse. First, in 2018 the Chinese version of the EPA (up until then an almost toothless government body) decided to come down hard on Baoji. This is one of China’s most heavily industrialized and polluted provinces. New restrictions were enacted overnight and implemented in a coordinated Blitzkrieg meant to capture the worst offenders red handed. The aftermath temporarily slowed the entire tungsten industry to a trickle with a resulting spike in the price of this metal. Then, a couple of years later, the pandemic’s lockdowns shuttered mills and refineries choking the supply again. Elsewhere in the world other restrictions left receiving ports clogged and decimated business purchase orders for a recovery that would stretch many painful months.

The one-two punch was hard on the world’s ‘tungstenomics’ but the strong bounceback in the industrialized world has nearly restored trade levels to its former levels. The bullion industry now opens a new page with the understated introduction of these bars and may well turn into a significant demand channel for this metal in the years to come.