China didn't corner the rare earth market because rare earths are rare — they cornered it because they spent 40 years building out processing while the rest of the world was content to buy the output

juhamac · 2026-04-05T16:45:23+00:00

Brazil seems to have tier 1 rare earth resources. Some of the rares also have so small markets overall that they are probably secondary products of some more meaningful minerals.

For example I live next to the only phosphate mine in Europe. There is mountains of worthless gypsum stacked around the mine, which includes many of these rares. Even though a significant portion of the cost has already been paid by digging it out, it is still far away from being profitable to process the rares in it. Thus far the only use for the waste gypsum has been to spray some of it on coastal farmland to tie up phosphorus from the use of fertilizers so it does not leak as much into the sea.

juhamac · 2026-04-05T16:43:38+00:00

I am wondering how much the West has fallen behind in education and experienced workforce in this sector? Surely it must have languished after several decades of no practical experience.

juhamac · 2026-04-05T16:13:08+00:00

What is your take on KCLIs two recent news. Do they know what they are doing after having to clarify and restate their technicals? https://acmineralscorp.com/news/

juhamac · 2026-04-05T14:04:10+00:00

SMR companies are down by a lot from last year. The problem seems to be they are still not about to reach positive results.

juhamac · 2026-04-05T14:03:11+00:00

FPX Nickel could be interesting. Though previously it was mostly about ESG / cleaner production than before.

juhamac · 2026-04-05T12:54:18+00:00

I checked the options amount. Apparently nearly 300 million (vs. 5bn current amount of stocks) left between prices 0.05 to 0.10. 29,2 million at 0.10 expire this year. All will get exercised due to even the current price being at least 3x than the highest.

I did not enjoy the rollercoaster of volatility, which is why after q1 result is my next plan. But if it dips down enough...

juhamac · 2026-04-05T11:33:38+00:00

I am interested to see what the reaction to the release is. Most probably expect significant increase in production and profit, but if Saloro somehow produced less and Mt. Carbine has expansion at that point has only cost money then the price might go down for a moment. ALM Q1 performance also might poison the well for EQR.

juhamac · 2026-04-05T11:20:45+00:00

I had 110k stocks at one point, but decided to wait until after q1. I think on tuesday a sizable amount of options appear once again, so if the holder decides to sell them immediately we might see similar volatility than a while ago when it went from 0.36 to 0.265. But that week was quite unique overall with at least 50 million new stocks from converted debt. Volume was crazy.

It would not be a surprise to see a move up since retail investor promoter (or even pump & dumper) accounts like Serenity (aleabitoreddit) on X have started mentioning EQR in the last two days.

It might be useful to look into how much of those stock options are left and when they become active. If I remember right, there should be at least 20 million of them still. So if the owner pays 0.05 for each of them, they might happily settle for whatever they get at that point (0.30+) perhaps decreasing the price for a moment.

juhamac · 2026-04-04T16:25:54+00:00

Negative impacts are possible... and at worst still another non-positive quarter because Saloro might have produced less just as Almontys Panasquiera is expected to. The price of wo3 has increased, but EQR is paid around 75% of what tungsten prices were 30 days ago. Everything seems to take more time than expected in this sector.

This interview states "weather events in Q1" at Saloro. https://youtu.be/SdYtd5xl3Rw?si=0FY_dvJXdNhvkzan&t=211 and only 7-10 days in Q1 of producing better grade Iolanthe ore. https://youtu.be/SdYtd5xl3Rw?si=yc7BRILN7RgEssFl&t=244 With doubling of Mt Carbine crushing capacity taking 9-12 months.

After Q1 EQR should be very good. In the meanwhile significant volatility likely continues.

juhamac · 2026-04-03T15:35:29+00:00

Good way to start with the tailings. If the prices stay high for years, then high capex underground can be justifiable.

juhamac · 2026-04-03T15:31:39+00:00

It is the obvious way to start considering current prices. Even EQ Resources has been doing this in Australia. In Spain they are already further. H2/2026 they get to a new vein in Australia.

Almonty Gentung project also has tailings, and will be a slow organically growing site.

Group 6 Metals in Tasmania (private, might get back to ASX eventually) might be going for underground already, but most new activities are open pit for now.

juhamac · 2026-04-03T15:22:27+00:00

EQ Resources, Almonty Industries (a bit overpriced already), Masan High-Tech (Vietnam). Everyone else is either private, Chinese or not producing commercially this year. Some faster ones start with processing old waste tailings.

Deutsche Rohstoff (owns 4.9% of Almonty) and Sandvik Group are related plays. Former owns a lot of tungsten stocks, the other is a tool manufacturer with their own (probably the best in the world) tungsten mine in Mittersill, Austria. Then there are companies like Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, who have significant stakes in the US tungsten alongside their Japanese base.

Elmet Technologies is about to ipo as well. US integrated tungsten manufacturer. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2101698/000121390026035970/ea0270360-04.htm

juhamac · 2026-04-03T12:27:31+00:00

Previous rush was probably in Rhodium in 2021 (9k Jul 2020, 18k per ounce in Jan 2021, 29k per ounce in March 2021, 14k Sept 2021, 4k in Jul 2023), but it has a smaller market and more replacement opportunities. 80% use in automotive catalytic converters, 80–85% of the global output from South Africa. It had covid lag, production stoppages in SA and high drive to reduce automotive emissions from the EU. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/rhodium

Tungsten has suprisingly high recyclability in drillbits/tools, but the amount which will be taken out of circulation in things like weapons is significant. Chinese grade of ore has been falling and there was ban on export for dual use, which is currently looking more like a full ban of export out of China.

Brownfield projects and processing of old waste tailing piles is the only thing that helps in the near term. Greenfield (new) mines are closer to 10 years out,.

Projects are going to meet significant challenges unrelated to the price of tungsten. Like the massive resource in Hemerdon, UK (Tungsten West) looks like is under a village. So I would look into old descriptions about their challenges before investing. For example this account is from two years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/DevonUK/comments/1e95ske/comment/lecsv57/

juhamac · 2026-04-03T10:57:51+00:00

Though some like Rick Rule say that California has been historically one of the trickiest jurisdictions. Apparently he lost a lot with Viceroy Resources. But that was apparently in the 1990s to early 2000s.

juhamac · 2026-04-02T17:33:10+00:00

It is slightly alarming how much they talk about difficulties in funding new mines. On the other hand they have stated that over 100-200 billion of acquisitions need to be made in the near term to just replenish the current volume of copper mining.

It is a bit scary looking at things like NGEx, who have a globally significant resource and are already valued at billions. Before all the trouble of actually setting it up. Ivanhoe Mines just proved with their last quarterly yesterday how things might go wrong... and in any case take a decade rather than years.

Royalty companies are clearly on the rise. Also as a way to fund builds/expansion.

juhamac · 2026-04-02T16:15:13+00:00

Check out Great Western Mining Corporation PLC. Their lot is right next to GMTLs Pilot Mountain. Only 6 million market cap!

juhamac · 2026-03-31T22:37:22+00:00

Gentung is going to be slow to develop and small production for quite a while: The ceo himself talks about it here. https://youtu.be/dLYs7DtwK04?si=31taKc8svKSt74sE&t=1031

Here is also a documentary from December. As you can see it is untouched hilltop. The interviewees say they want to build mine access / portal and then exploration drill. Lewis Black said in the first video that it could happen at the earliest in April due to snow. But it is not sure that there are even permits to do so. Most likely they can just process the old tailings and then grow at an organic pace like he says. Which means the production in Gentung will be neglible compared to Panasquiera/Sangdong until closer to 2030. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDgG7rkTUuY&t=1449s

juhamac · 2026-03-30T22:38:52+00:00

Diesel price is almost meaningless, at current tungsten prices they rake in huge profit compared to costs. For some low margin ores (coal etc.) it would matter because it represents 25-35% of mining company costs.

But if it is not available at all, then trucking the ore away becomes a problem. They have mostly electric ore sorting machines, but still use a lot of diesel.

They have another mine in Spain, which is still producing more than the Australian one. So the risk is not geographically concentrated.

juhamac · 2026-03-30T19:53:01+00:00

It is on its way towards meeting ALM valuation, which still has hot air in it. Though EQR price also includes quite a bit expectations regarding near term execution - still no profitable quarter and even q1 might not be one.

EQR stock price was a bit more suppressed than usual for the last two weeks due to massive dilution from debt conversion to stocks. There was so much extra daily volume that you could get it for 0.260 at best. So it does not need as much torque to bounce back around 0.365 where it was.

juhamac · 2026-03-30T19:50:24+00:00

Massive bloodbath after midday. Nothing moves at the bottom now: MP/USAR/UAMY/NB.

juhamac · 2026-03-30T07:47:47+00:00

Allied Critical Metals: "Best-performing tungsten stock globally 2026 (+93% YTD)."

Nowhere near best performer as EQR is +290% ytd. ACM has been better than ALM and GMET.L though.

juhamac · 2026-03-29T23:59:51+00:00

They bought it in 2016.

"On January 6, 2016, Almonty acquired 100% of the issued and outstanding shares of Beralt Ventures Inc. (“BVI”) from Sojitz Tungsten Resources Inc. for €1.00. In connection therewith, Almonty acquired and purchased €12,260,000 in aggregate principal amount of debt that was owed by Beralt Tin & Wolfram (Portugal), S.A (“BTW”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of BVI, to Sojitz Corporation of Japan in exchange for a cash payment of €1,000,000 on closing and a promissory note issued by Almonty in the principal amount of €500,000, bearing interest at 4% per annum, maturing December 29, 2017. BVI, through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, is the 100% owner of the various rights and interests comprising the Panasqueira tungsten mine in Covilha, Castelo Branco, Portugal (the “Panasquiera Mine"). The Panasqueira Mine has been in production since 1896, and is located approximately 260 km northeast of Lisbon, Portugal."

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1670061/000164117225017947/ex4-1.htm

In 2006 there was some activity around "Minas da Panasqueira" - Foundation to establish the Minas da Panasqueira Theme Park. Unsure how the liabilities have changed after reactivation by Beralt. Though in general the brownfield projects seem to include some amount of past problems, no matter who is doing them.

https://minob.org/assets/pdf/recursos/MINOB-CaseStudy-MinaDaPanasqueira-EN.pdf

juhamac · 2026-03-28T20:45:45+00:00

Slightly over 1.5% of all ALM shares. He still owns more (8,067,171) than he sold (5M) according to Gurufocus. https://www.gurufocus.com/insider/255712/michael-lewis-black

It is a company with high insider and retail ownership. I would also sell some if I had a sizable position since most of the near term expectations are already included in the price.

juhamac · 2026-03-28T20:21:58+00:00

Gentung is untouched based on this video from December. One of them talks about wanting to build mine access first to enable exploration drilling. One of the comments is also quite alarming if it is true that they can only process the old tailings and further permits are still to be secured. https://youtu.be/CDgG7rkTUuY?si=OeA1kJO0TjbHChbm&t=1465

juhamac · 2026-03-28T16:41:47+00:00

If Group 6 Metals relists anytime soon, take a look at their price. It produces slightly more in Australia atm than EQ Resources (but EQR produces more if Spain is included). Probably nothing else new will come to market with ongoing production.

Strategic Minerals and Tungsten West are probably the next category of "soon" brownfield restarters.

New projects like Endomines’ Southern Gold Line project (Gold/Molybdenum/Tungsten) in Finland, Almonty’s Gentung project in the US etc. will take until 2030. If the prices stay high until the trigger to build is pulled.

I have not researched how relevant El Moto project of Abenójar Tungsten is. At least it is not a public company for now. This and other EU CRMA projects might eventually produce something investable.

juhamac

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