UK Invests in Tungsten Mine, but Weapons-Grade Refining Remains China-Dominated

The UK Ministry of Defence has formally committed to reducing its dependence on China-dominated supply chains for tungsten and other critical minerals — materials used in armor-piercing rounds and aircraft radar systems. In a written parliamentary statement, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said the ministry was coordinating with industry and allied countries to reduce exposure to single-source, high-risk suppliers. The statement came 10 days after the government committed up to £71 million (about $96 million) to restart the Hemerdon tungsten mine in Devon, giving British defense contractors their first domestic source of the metal since China's 2025 export controls reshaped the global market.

The stakes are substantial. China accounted for roughly 80% of global tungsten mining in 2025 — 67,000 of the 85,000 metric tons produced worldwide, according to the US Geological Survey — and controls an even larger share of downstream processing. This is the stage at which raw ore is converted into the powders and compounds used by weapons manufacturers. When Beijing began tightening export controls on tungsten in February 2025, requiring exporters to obtain special licenses and demonstrate that the materials would not be used for military purposes, prices surged. Ammonium paratungstate (APT), the benchmark tungsten intermediate, rose from about $300 per metric ton unit in early 2025 to approximately $3,185 by May 2026 — an increase of about 900% in 12 months.

China also sharply increased its tungsten ore imports in 2025, bringing in 20,400 metric tons of ores and concentrates, up 64% from a year earlier, while restricting exports of processed intermediates. The result has been a further concentration of the global supply chain inside China, forcing other buyers to seek alternatives.

That search has a firm deadline in the United States. Defense procurement rules, specifically DFARS 252.225-7052, will prohibit the use of Chinese-origin tungsten in qualifying defense applications from Jan. 1, 2027. In late July 2026, the US Army Contracting Command issued a sources-sought notice for 120mm Advanced Tungsten Armor-Piercing, Fin-Stabilized, Discarding Sabot cartridges. The round requires large volumes of high-quality tungsten alloy, underscoring the urgency of the supply situation for NATO's largest military.

Why Tungsten Cannot Be Substituted

Tungsten is not simply another industrial metal. With a melting point of 3,422°C (6,192°F), the highest of any pure metal, and a density of about 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter — almost the same as gold — it is the material of choice for kinetic-energy penetrators. These long, dense rods form the core of armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) rounds used by NATO main battle tanks.

A modern 120mm tank gun fires a penetrator roughly 2–3 centimeters (about 1 inch) in diameter and up to 80 centimeters (31 inches) long at speeds of 1,400–1,800 meters per second (about 3,100–4,000 miles per hour). Its mass and velocity concentrate kinetic energy on an area smaller than a fist, allowing it to punch through steel armor that could deflect or shatter a conventional round.

Only two materials are sufficiently dense to perform this role reliably at scale: tungsten and depleted uranium (DU). The US military prefers DU for its best tank rounds because it self-sharpens on impact. Rather than mushrooming against armor as tungsten can, DU shears cleanly and concentrates more energy deeper into the target. But DU is radioactive, politically contentious and increasingly subject to environmental restrictions. As a result, most NATO allies, including the UK, use tungsten as their primary penetrator material.

The engineering constraint that makes China's supply-chain dominance especially significant is that tungsten cannot be cast like steel. Its melting point is too high for conventional foundries. Instead, manufacturers use powder metallurgy: tungsten powder is mixed with small quantities of nickel and iron or cobalt binders, cold-pressed into shape and sintered at about 1,500°C (2,732°F) in controlled atmospheres. The result is a dense, uniform rod that can be precision-ground to the required tolerances.

This means that a country with a functioning tungsten mine is not automatically capable of producing penetrator-grade material. It also needs APT refining, tungsten-powder production and sintering facilities — capabilities China has developed over decades.

What the Mine Does — and What It Doesn't

Hemerdon, 11 kilometers (7 miles) northeast of Plymouth, is operated by AIM-listed Tungsten West and contains one of the world's three largest tungsten resources. The mine produced tungsten and tin from 2015 to 2018 under its former operator, Wolf Minerals, before that company entered administration. Tungsten West acquired the site in 2019 and has since redesigned its processing layout and obtained new environmental permits. More than £170 million (about $230 million) in infrastructure from the previous operators is already in place.

The National Wealth Fund's investment consists of £36 million (about $49 million) in equity, giving the government a 7.42% stake in Tungsten West, plus up to £35 million (about $47 million) in debt financing. The funding completes the capital required for the company to reach commercial production. The government also secured a limited negotiation period for an offtake agreement covering up to 50% of the mine's annual tungsten output, based on figures from the 2025 feasibility study.

As of early September 2026, Hemerdon was undergoing active commissioning. The Phase 1 fines gravity circuit, which separates tungsten minerals from waste rock based on their different densities, was operating at up to 100 tonnes per hour in its initial configuration, with a target installed capacity of about 200 tonnes per hour. The coarse gravity circuit is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2026. Full commissioning, including new crushing, screening and ore-sorting facilities, is targeted for the first quarter of 2027 at 500 tonnes per hour.

The mine will produce tungsten and tin concentrates. It will not produce ammonium paratungstate, tungsten oxide, tungsten powder or penetrator-ready material. Between concentrate and a completed weapon component, the ore must pass through APT refining, reduction to metal powder and sintering. Outside China, Western countries have built very little of this intermediate-processing capacity. A senior industry witness before the UK Parliament's Business and Trade Sub-Committee on Economic Security identified midstream processing as the decisive challenge in building a Western defense supply chain independent of China.

This is not a criticism of Hemerdon. It is a structural assessment of the UK's investment strategy. A domestic mine significantly improves the ore-extraction outlook and reduces exposure to Chinese concentrate exports, but it does not by itself secure the weapons-manufacturing chain.

Geopolitical Wake-Up Call

The urgency behind the investment is measurable. China's tungsten export controls now cover not only tungsten concentrates but also ammonium paratungstate and tungsten oxides, extending across the middle of the supply chain on which overseas manufacturers depend most.

What the Ministry of Defence Is Building

Pollard's parliamentary statement outlined four parallel tracks: identifying alternative supply sources, investing in allied capacity, securing supplies and promoting recycling, and pursuing substitution research to reduce dependence on individual suppliers and high-risk locations. The ministry is coordinating with NATO allies and Australia to share intelligence on vulnerabilities before they become operational crises.

As part of its allied-sourcing efforts, the UK is establishing a bilateral framework with Australia through formal diplomatic channels. On Feb. 23, 2026, Pollard hosted Australian Defense Industry Minister Pat Conroy for the Australia-UK Defense Industry Dialogue, where the two sides discussed cooperation on critical minerals needed for advanced defense technologies, better information-sharing and joint research. This work fed into the Australia-UK Ministerial Consultations in London on June 10, 2026. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and Defence Secretary John Healey hosted senior Australian ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, and signed a joint statement on critical-mineral supply chains for defense.

The partnership with Australia is strategically complementary. Australia has substantial and geologically diverse critical-mineral resources and is expanding its downstream processing capacity, positioning itself as a credible alternative supplier to NATO-aligned countries at a time when those countries are seeking options.

How Recycling Can Narrow the Gap

Alongside new mines and bilateral agreements, the Ministry of Defence's strategy treats recycling as a structural buffer, recognizing that even ambitious diversification will leave some vulnerabilities.

Major industrial users have long collected and reprocessed tungsten scrap, while UK research institutions are working to scale up new recovery technologies. The University of Birmingham has been commercializing a process that pulverizes used magnets into powder for remanufacturing. Its HyProMag spinout operates a demonstration plant and is expanding capacity in Europe. Queen's University Belfast's Ionic Technologies received £11 million (about $15 million) from the UK's Advanced Propulsion Centre to advance the recovery of rare earths from end-of-life magnets using ionic liquids. These programs are modest relative to the overall supply shortfall, but they address the midstream-processing problem from the recycling side rather than the mining side — where the main bottleneck lies.

Where This Leaves UK Contractors

For defense prime contractors and their suppliers, the ministry's policy direction is becoming more concrete. Its commitment to improving visibility across industry suggests that procurement frameworks will begin incorporating provenance requirements for tungsten, rare earths and other dual-use minerals. Contractors will consequently face pressure to audit and certify their supply chains in ways that have not historically been required.

The UK is also home to Less Common Metals (LCM), the only Western producer of rare-earth magnet alloys, including alloys used in the F-35 program. This gives the company a unique midstream position in the rare-earth supply chain, similar to Hemerdon's potential role in tungsten. USA Rare Earth acquired LCM in November 2025, further integrating it into an allied supply chain aligned with NATO demand.

The UK government's exclusive negotiation period for Hemerdon's offtake agreement lasts about six months from the August 2026 investment date. A binding supply agreement would therefore need to be concluded by around late February 2027 to establish the mine's domestic anchor role. If negotiations produce a contract, Hemerdon will become the centerpiece of a credible domestic tungsten base for UK defense procurement. If they stall, pressure on allied and multilateral supply channels will intensify.

In either case, the UK's defense industry is being formally asked to treat tungsten as a frontline strategic variable rather than a routine logistics assumption. For contractors that currently source from Chinese intermediaries, either directly or through their suppliers, that signal is likely to appear as a procurement requirement sooner rather than later.

How Does UK Mineral Policy Compare Internationally?

The UK is not leading this effort. The United States faces a tighter deadline with its January 2027 ban on Chinese tungsten in defense applications and has invested more aggressively in domestic and allied processing capacity. The European Union's Critical Raw Materials Act has established binding domestic-sourcing targets across the bloc. Japan, one of the world's largest tungsten consumers, has seen its Chinese supply roughly halve and is accelerating purchases from alternative sources, including Vietnam's Masan High-Tech Materials, which supplies close to 30% of global demand outside China.

Analysts have consistently warned that new supply cannot be brought online quickly. Even well-funded projects in Spain, Brazil, Australia and the United States face timelines of several years. The advantage of brownfield restarts such as Hemerdon, where infrastructure already exists and environmental permits are in place, is that they shorten those timelines. Tungsten West is targeting full production at 500 tonnes per hour by the first quarter of 2027.

The UK's Vision 2035 strategy sets binding targets: domestic production should meet at least 10% of annual critical-mineral demand, recycling should meet 20%, and no more than 60% of any single mineral should come from one country — all by 2035. Starting from a current domestic sourcing level of about 6%, the targets represent a major structural shift. The Hemerdon investment is the most concrete step so far toward achieving them.

Chancellor John Healey summarized the rationale for the investment: "We are living in a more dangerous world, which is why backing British industry is more important than ever before. We are tapping into one of the largest deposits of tungsten in the world, right here in the UK."

For UK defense contractors, the message is clear: the era of treating tungsten sourcing as someone else's logistics problem is ending.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes tungsten irreplaceable in military ammunition?

Tungsten's combination of extreme density — about 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter, nearly as dense as gold — and a melting point of 3,422°C (6,192°F) makes it the primary material for kinetic-energy penetrators in armor-piercing tank rounds. The physics of penetration require a dense, hard rod fired at high velocity to concentrate kinetic energy over the smallest possible area. Only tungsten and depleted uranium perform this role at scale. Most NATO allies, including the UK, use tungsten because depleted uranium is radioactive and politically contentious. Tungsten can be converted into weapons-grade material only through powder metallurgy, in which metal powder is mixed with binders, compressed and sintered. Weapon production therefore requires specialized facilities beyond the mine itself.

Why can't the UK simply buy tungsten from countries other than China?

China accounts for roughly 79% of global tungsten mine production and controls an even larger share of downstream processing, particularly the refining of tungsten into ammonium paratungstate and the production of tungsten powder and carbide used directly by manufacturers. Non-Chinese producers, including Vietnam's Masan High-Tech Materials, which supplies about 30% of demand outside China, Spain's Saloro and Hemerdon in the UK, can provide ore concentrates. But Western APT refining and powder-production capacity outside China remains very limited. The main chokepoint is therefore not the mine but the processing chain downstream of it.

What does the Hemerdon mine actually produce, and how does that connect to weapons manufacturing?

Hemerdon produces tungsten and tin concentrates, the raw output of ore processing using gravity circuits and dense-media separation. The concentrate must then be processed into APT, reduced to tungsten oxide and metal powder, and finally sintered into rod-shaped components that ammunition manufacturers machine into penetrators. Hemerdon addresses the ore-extraction stage; APT refining and powder production remain gaps in Western industrial capacity. The Ministry of Defence's strategy identifies recycling and allied sourcing as partial answers, but building Western midstream-processing capacity independent of China is the next challenge that the Hemerdon investment does not yet resolve.

What does the US tungsten ban mean for the UK?

From Jan. 1, 2027, the US Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement, DFARS 252.225-7052, will prohibit Chinese-origin tungsten in qualifying US defense procurement. This creates a direct commercial opportunity for Hemerdon and other non-Chinese producers, while also signaling the broader direction of allied procurement policy: NATO countries are systematically removing Chinese critical minerals from their weapons supply chains. For UK contractors supplying US-linked programs, including the F-35, the rule effectively creates a compliance requirement that will flow through their own supply chains.

Originally published on Tech Times