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VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. Metal News News Commentary - Tungsten concentrate, basis 50 to 70% WO3, cif global, was assessed by Fastmarkets at $750 to $850 per metric tonne unit at the start of 2026. Since May 29 it has held at $2,500 to $2,800 per mtu. The metal roughly tripled inside five months, and the reason is not demand. In December 2025 China said that only 15 firms would be authorized to export tungsten in 2026 and 2027, formalized through its dual-use items catalogue. The U.S. Geological Survey put Chinese mine output at 67,000 of the world's 85,000 tonnes in 2025, with the United States mining none, as it has every year since 2015. Everyone outside that list of fifteen is now competing for whatever is released, and the only durable answer is a drill rig. Active Companies from around the markets with current developments this week include: GoldHaven Resources Corp. (CSE: GOH) (OTCQB: GHVNF) (FSE: 4QS), Almonty Industries Inc. (Nasdaq: ALM), Guardian Metal Resources plc (NYSE American: GMTL), Ramaco Resources, Inc. (Nasdaq: METC), and Idaho Strategic Resources, Inc. (NYSE American: IDR).
The procurement side of this is more specific than the general critical minerals conversation suggests. Through the end of 2026, the restriction under DFARS on tungsten sourced from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea turns on where the material was melted or produced. From January 1, 2027 the clause widens to the mine or ore stage, and it names recycled and scrap material explicitly, so material that has passed through a recycling stream no longer resets its country of origin. The commercially available off-the-shelf carve-out narrows on the same date.
For a defense supplier that converts a paperwork question into a sourcing question, and the sourcing options are thin. Tungsten does not trade on a major exchange. There is no liquid futures curve to hedge against and pricing is assessed rather than cleared, so a buyer who needs compliant material cannot simply buy a contract. They have to find a supplier, qualify the material and sign something. That structure rewards whoever is furthest along when the deadline arrives.
New non-Chinese mine supply is coming, but slowly, and North America is short of it. Canada added tungsten to the eligible minerals list under the Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit in Budget 2025, with Bill C-15 receiving Royal Assent on March 26, 2026, giving a 30% credit on flow-through agreements entered after November 4, 2025 and on or before March 31, 2027. That is a policy response to the same shortage, and it points exploration capital at exactly the kind of historic ground that was walked away from when tungsten last went quiet.
Northern British Columbia has a good deal of that ground. The Cassiar District produced through several commodity cycles and was largely abandoned before modern geophysics, modern drilling and modern analytical methods were ever applied to it. What is happening there now is the first systematic test of whether the historical work understated what is present.
GoldHaven Advances Tungsten Drilling at Magno Project, British Columbia, With Drilling Encountering Broad Skarn Intervals
- Over 800 metres drilled from the first drill pad at the historic Kuhn tungsten system, across four holes, with drilling continuing over multiple planned drill fences.
- An approximately 20-metre interval of skarn encountered in the second drill hole, where historical interpretation had mapped two separate narrower skarn bands.
- A confirmed down-dip extension in the fourth hole, GOH26-04, into a part of the skarn unit never previously explored.
- Historical drilling at Kuhn returned 13.0 metres grading 0.55% WO3 and 11.3 metres grading 0.59% WO3 with 0.10% MoS2. Historical results pre-date NI 43-101 and are not current mineral resources.
- Historical work outlined approximately 616,500 tonnes grading 0.48% WO3 across four modeled lenses at the Kuhn and Dead Goat system. This is a historical estimate only and is not being treated as a current mineral resource.
GoldHaven Resources Corp. (CSE: GOH) (OTCQB: GHVNF) (FSE: 4QS) provided an update on the ongoing maiden diamond drill program at its 100%-owned Magno Project in the Cassiar District of northern British Columbia. Drilling commenced in late August at the historic Kuhn tungsten skarn system, with over 800 metres completed to date in four holes from the first drill pad. The initial phase is designed to test the geometry, continuity and potential extensions of historically identified tungsten-bearing skarn mineralization while producing the first modern drill data on the system.
The first three holes encountered broad intervals of skarn alteration and sulphide mineralization within the top 100 metres, including an approximately 20-metre interval of skarn in the second hole. That interval is the detail worth pausing on. The historical geological interpretation at the site mapped two separate skarn bands at that position, while initial observations from the current drilling suggest the possibility of a broader, more continuous skarn package. The fourth hole confirmed a never before explored down-dip extension of the skarn unit.
Visually, the geology encountered in the first holes appears to match the lithological descriptions in the historical drill logs and reports, and analysis with a portable XRF indicates the presence of tungsten within the skarn intersections. A portable XRF reading is a field indication and not an assay; core is being logged, sampled and submitted for laboratory analysis, with results to be released as they are received, reviewed and verified.
"The first phase of drilling at Magno is doing exactly what we wanted it to do – giving us a modern look at a historically important tungsten system that has seen very limited exploration for decades. We are encouraged by the scale of the skarn alteration encountered in the early holes, particularly where drilling appears to show a broader package than suggested by the historical interpretation. With drilling continuing, our priority is to systematically test Kuhn and build the geological framework needed to determine the scale and continuity of the system,"
commented Rob Birmingham, Chief Executive Officer of GoldHaven.
The four initial holes from Pad A were designed to test the system at greater depth and evaluate potential extensions. On completion of the first pad, the drill is planned to advance to a second pad along strike where approximately three to four additional holes are planned. The objective through this phase is to establish multiple modern drill sections across Kuhn, giving significantly improved information on geometry, thickness and continuity, and allowing direct comparison with the historical drilling.
The Kuhn and Dead Goat area hosts a series of historically defined tungsten-bearing skarn lenses. Historical drilling at Kuhn included reported intersections of 13.0 metres grading 0.55% WO3, 11.3 metres grading 0.59% WO3 with 0.10% MoS2, and 4.0 metres grading 1.32% WO3 with 0.26% MoS2. Those results and the approximately 616,500 tonne historical estimate pre-date NI 43-101, a Qualified Person has not completed sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as a current mineral resource, and GoldHaven is not treating it as one.
Kuhn is the first phase of a broader campaign across the district-scale 37,000-plus hectare Magno Project. Following the initial program, GoldHaven intends to evaluate additional high-priority drill targets including the D Zone and the broader Magno target area, where historical exploration and recent surface work have identified silver, lead, zinc, gold and copper mineralization. Targeting is supported by the integration of historical drilling and underground workings, surface mapping and geochemistry, and the Company's recently completed 2,320.7 line-kilometre airborne magnetic and QMAGT survey. Geophysical and structural features identified by that survey are conceptual exploration targets, and a magnetic anomaly is not evidence of mineralization. The 2026 program is being completed by Northtech Drilling and is the first modern, systematic drill campaign GoldHaven has undertaken at Magno.
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There's some major industry developments in this sector this week, more companies making headlines include:
Almonty Industries Inc. (Nasdaq: ALM) announced on September 14, 2026 a binding joint venture with the Government of Rwanda under which Rwanda receives a 25% stake in Almonty Rwanda in exchange for the Shyorongi tungsten exploration concession and a mineral processing license. The partnership is structured to source and export ore, pre-concentrate and tailings from existing Rwandan small-scale license holders, supported initially by a mobile processing unit with plans for a centralized collection and processing plant.
Almonty is the scale reference in this sector rather than a comparable. It operates the Sangdong mine in South Korea, which moved into processing operations during 2026, holds assets across Europe and the United States including the Gentung project in Beaverhead County, Montana, and in July 2026 expanded its Sangdong offtake agreement with Global Tungsten & Powders, extending the term from 15 to 21 years and increasing contracted volume by 40% to 4.41 million MTU. The Company frames the Rwanda transaction as a first step in a broader program aimed at closing the widening non-Chinese supply gap ahead of the 2027 procurement rules.
Guardian Metal Resources plc (NYSE American: GMTL) announced that it will become a constituent of the FTSE AIM 50 Index effective September 21, 2026, following FTSE Russell's quarterly review. Chief Executive Oliver Friesen described the inclusion as a milestone on the journey begun with the Company's AIM listing in May 2023, reflecting momentum built while working to reshore mined tungsten production to the United States.
The Company is advancing two co-flagship Nevada tungsten projects, Pilot Mountain, described as one of the largest undeveloped tungsten deposits in the United States, and Tempiute, formerly one of America's largest producing tungsten operations. In July 2025 the U.S. Department of War invested US$6.2 million in its wholly owned subsidiary Golden Metal Resources (USA) LLC under Title III of the Defense Production Act to support the Pilot Mountain prefeasibility study. Guardian completed its NYSE American listing on March 20, 2026. It is a useful stage-and-jurisdiction reference for any company drilling past-producing tungsten ground, and its shares have traded well below their 52-week high through 2026, which is worth stating rather than glossing.
Ramaco Resources, Inc. (Nasdaq: METC) is approaching the same shortage from an unconventional direction, developing the Brook Mine in Sheridan, Wyoming, which the Company describes as the largest unconventional rare earth and critical minerals deposit in the United States, hosted in coal and carbonaceous ore rather than in a carbonatite or a skarn. In August 2026 it entered a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Indium Corporation covering potential supply of gallium and germanium from the project.
Ramaco is included because it illustrates how broadly the domestic critical minerals push has spread beyond the obvious deposit types, and how quickly a conventional producer can reposition around one. Brook Mine remains formally an exploration-stage property and the Company reports its rare earth and critical mineral estimates as in-place inferred mineral resources, which is a materially different standard from a defined reserve.
Idaho Strategic Resources, Inc. (NYSE American: IDR) is unusual in this cohort for funding critical minerals exploration out of an operating gold mine rather than out of the equity market. The Company controls what it describes as the largest rare earth element land package in the United States, and in 2026 reported heavy rare earth and yttrium mineralization at its Diamond Creek project, including a 32-metre surface trench averaging approximately 1.8% total rare earth oxides.
The relevance to a story about historic ground is in the Company's own language. It states that its early-stage Lucky Gem model is conceptual and insufficient under S-K 1300 to be considered a formal mineral resource. That is the same distinction that governs the Kuhn historical estimate discussed above, and it is the line every explorer working old ground has to cross before the numbers mean anything.