Almonty’s Sangdong tungsten mine start-up: stockpile, grade and ramp-up notes for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Almonty Industries has started processing stockpiled run-of-mine ore at its newly commissioned Sangdong tungsten plant in Gangwon, South Korea, moving the historic underground mine into revenue-generating operations. The company has built up about 139,700 tonnes of stockpiled ore at a blended 0.25% WO₃, with contained tungsten valued at roughly $68 million, equivalent to 2.6 months of Phase I feed at current prices. Sangdong, with a stated mine life of more than 45 years and average reserve grade of 0.51% WO₃, is expected to supply around 40% of ex-China tungsten demand at full capacity.
Technical Brief
- June start-up used stockpiled run-of-mine ore to commission the new Sangdong processing plant.
- Q1 2026 stockpile totalled ~120,000 t at 0.24% WO₃ before further development ore was added.
- An additional ~19,700 t of development ore at 0.35% WO₃ was mined in Q2 2026.
- Underground development advanced 214.6 m in Q2, mainly along the Main Vein access drives.
- Lower-grade ore is deliberately used in ramp-up to optimise blending and stabilise plant feed quality.
- Sangdong’s “low-grade” ore is about three times higher grade than Almonty’s Panasqueira ore in Portugal.
- Sangdong’s reserve grade of ~0.51% WO₃ is roughly triple the current global average tungsten ore grade.
Our Take
Almonty Industries’ move to start processing at Sangdong comes on the heels of its planned US$700 million 2.25% senior convertible notes issue, signalling that the company is trying to lock in both project-level cash flow and balance-sheet firepower for a broader tungsten growth pipeline beyond South Korea.
With Sangdong expected to supply a large share of tungsten demand outside China and Almonty recently relocating its headquarters to Dillon, Montana to align with the Gentung-Browns Lake project, the company is positioning itself as a North America–linked alternative supplier in a market where China remains dominant.
Morgan Stanley’s inclusion of Almonty Industries in its “Space 60” framework for space hardware materials suggests that high-grade tungsten from Sangdong could find premium end-uses in aerospace and defence, potentially supporting pricing resilience relative to more traditional industrial tungsten outlets.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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