THE conflict in Iran is fueling U.S. discussions about restoring domestic production of tungsten, a supermetal critical to the defense industry.
Tungsten, widely used in munitions, notably in Tomahawk missiles, has become extremely rare since China, the world’s largest producer, impose export restrictions on it in 2025. American companies have stopped mining tungsten in 2015 when the cost of its importation was lower than national production costs. But the shortage has prompted some companies to start exploring U.S. production again.
Tungsten is renowned for its strength. Of all the elements on the periodic table, tungsten, isolated for the first time in 1783has the highest melting point (6,192 degrees Fahrenheit) and boiling point (10,706 degrees F), about the temperature of the surface of the sun. It has the highest tensile strength of all metals and is denser than lead, making it highly desirable for armor-piercing and bunker-busting munitions.
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In 2025, China produced more than 78% of the world’s tungsten supply, or nearly 94,000 tonnes worldwide, according to a study. US Geological Survey report released earlier this year. With export restrictions, the cost of tungsten ore has increased steadily globally since early 2025. In the United States, the cost of importing tungsten has increased steadily since 2018, but in recent months the price has seen a sharp decline, according to a report. Scientific American analysis of data compiled by BusinessAnalystiq.
On Feb. 27, in response to the shortage of tungsten and other metals, the Pentagon sent a letter to a group of more than 1,500 companies and academic institutions that work with the U.S. military, urging them to increase domestic production. according to Reuters. The next day, the United States launched its first strikes against Iran.
Four weeks later, the United States had fired more than 850 Tomahawk missiles– more than nine times the amount the Defense Ministry usually purchases in a year – according to the Washington Post. The United States also used at least 40 of its 90 “precision strike missiles,” according to an April report from the Department of Defense. Center for Strategic and International Studies. These missiles are designed to explode in the air, projecting more than 180,000 tungsten balls outward. At the end of March, the New York Times reported that these missiles had exploded above civilian areas in the Iranian town of Lamerd in February.
As strikes resume in Iran, the number of these types of weapons used is likely to increase – NBC News reported that defense industry executives we plan to meet this week with the White House about its dwindling missile supply.
The United States has significant deposits of tungsten in the west of the country, according to a USGS report. Besides its use in weapons, it is an ideal metal for cutting and drilling instruments like saws and drill bits.
“General construction of any type of infrastructure would be nearly impossible without the use of tungsten, tungsten carbide, or tungsten-tipped tools,” says Ali Haji, CEO of American Tungsten.
Haji explains that once tungsten ore is mined, it is typically processed into a concentrate and shipped to a processor that turns it into ammonium paratungstate, or APT. The APT is then heated to high temperatures in a process called calcination and then reduced with hydrogen to produce tungsten powder sold to manufacturers and other end users.
American Tungsten hopes its Idaho mine will produce the metal by 2027. Haji says he hopes that eventually the mine will supply 8 percent of America’s tungsten demand. In February, the company announced the results of a first exploration of the site this suggested that it contained large quantities of tungsten trioxide and silver.
Unlike other hard metals, tungsten is largely nontoxic, but the byproducts of its extraction, called residues, contain other harmful metals, including arsenic, copper, zinc and lead, and can leach into the environment. Haji says their mine avoids these problems by drilling above water level.
“We have no discharges from the site and the contents are, generally speaking, three times higher than the world average currently produced,” explains Haji.
Almonty Industries, an international mining company, announced that it has purchased a tungsten mine in Montana last year and, earlier this year, moved its headquarters from Toronto to the state.
The U.S. government also began investing in domestic tungsten production projects. In January last year, the Ministry of Energy announced it gave Texas-based MELT Technologies more than $5.7 million to produce tungsten carbide. And the Defense Department last year announced a $6.2 million grant to Guardian Metal Resources to conduct a pre-feasibility study on a mine in Nevada. Neither company responded to requests for comment from Scientific American.
“Developing a domestic source of tungsten is one of our top critical and strategic minerals priorities,” Vic Ramdass, the Department of Defense’s acting assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy, said in a statement. press release announcing the 2025 grant to Guardian Metal Resources.
Recently, scientists have been experimenting with tungsten for a different purpose: protecting nuclear fusion reactors. In 2024, French and American scientists successfully contained plasma at 50 million degrees Celsius for six minutes using a fusion device called a tokamak coated with tungsten instead of traditional graphite tiles. But working with that can be difficult, said Luis Delgado-Aparicio, manager of advanced projects at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory: in a press release. “It’s simply the difference between trying to catch your kitten at home and trying to pet the wildest lion.”
As tungsten supplies remain scarce, U.S. industries are adapting to the supply problem. Drill bit manufacturers that serve the oil and gas industry are replace tungsten drill bits with steelwhich wears out more quickly.
Haji says he hopes the U.S. government will help protect nascent domestic suppliers of this essential supermetal.
“I think part of this responsibility lies with the government, which needs to put in place some sort of price protection, in case the Chinese flood the market again,” he says.
“Companies like ours have deployed a lot of capital to bring North American production online. »
