Growth in tungsten industry will be fueled by military needs

By Leia Michele Toovey- Exclusive to Tungsten Investing News

The tungsten market is witnessing consistent growth as development around the globe in  defense, civil and war industries are using up all the tungsten supplies they can get their hands on.

Asia Pacific represents the largest and fastest growing portion on the market.  End users largely depend on China, which represents over 85 per cent of the worldwide tungsten supply. China is also the largest stockpile for tungsten in the world, accounting for over 55 per cent of the world’s reserves. Of late, China has significantly reduced tungsten export due to its growing domestic requirements and restrictions on exports of certain metals; therefore, growth of the tungsten market depends largely on new discoveries and explorations on the international scene. The tungsten market is anticipated to cross 45,000 metric tonnes by the time 2010 rolls out. By the time 2012 hits, the tungsten market is projected to reach 91,000 tonnes.

Company news

Oriental Minerals (TSX-V:OTL)has arranged a non-brokered private placement of 1 million units at US$0.10 each. Each unit represents one common share, and one half a purchase warrant, with each warrant exercisable into US$0.20 for 12 months from the closing date of the private placement. The placee is Longview Capital Partners (LCP), Oriental Minerals’ largest shareholder.  With this additional placement, LCP shareholding in the company has increased to 19.1 per cent.  Oriental minerals will use the proceeds from this private placement as its working capital.  At present, the company is moving toward the completion of final elements of the preliminary economic assessment on the Sandong Tungsten- molybdenum project in South Korea.

North American Tungsten Corp (TSX-V:NTC) has entered into a strategic supply agreement with Global Tungsten and Powders Corp (GTC) for the contractual sale of a significant amount of the company’s tungsten concentrate production. Starting immediately, the agreement will run for12 months with 125,000 mtu’s of WO3 concentrate delivered in monthly installments. The agreement also calls for GTC to process toll material to Blue Tungsten Oxide on behalf of North American Tungsten.

Springer Mining Company, a subsidiary of Golden Predator Mines (TSX:GP), has closed an amended agreement with Cosgrave Ranch LLC.  In addition, the company has completed partial payment towards a promissory note. The amendment modifies the terms of the acquisition by Springer mining of certain strategic land, water rights, and other assets from Cosgrave Ranch LLC. The original asset purchase agreement included a promissory note of US$6.75 million payable July 3, 2013. US$2 million of the proceeds have been retained by Golden Predator, the balance of US$1 million has been paid to Cosgrave in addition to 4,728,000 units of Golden Predator having a deemed value of US$2 million, based on an agreed price of CDN$0.50, per unit. Each unit consists of one common share and one-half share purchase warrant exercisable at seventy-five cents ($0.75) each, exercisable for a period of two years. As a result of the amendment and partial payment of the promissory note, a principle balance of US$3.75 million remains payable to Cosgrave.

Yankee Hat Minerals Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: KHT) has announced that as a result of the regional joint venture grassroots exploration program with the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (“JOGMEC”) a new property, Kidlark, has been explored. Surface sampling has returned high grade tungsten assay results from this scheelite skarn occurrence. The Kidlark Property was explored in late July, and company geologists immediately staked 32 claims covering several visually impressive scheelite-bearing garnet skarn tungsten showings. The property is approximately 90 kilometers northeast of Whitehorse in an active placer gold operational area serviced by an active airstrip and winter road access. Eighteen grab samples were taken from the Kidlark Property and submitted to EcoTech Laboratories in Whitehorse for testing. Assay results for the samples ranged up to 7.68 per cent WO3 and averaged 1.463 per cent WO3 with visual estimations of scheelite content by UV fluorescence correlating well with WO3 per cent content. The 18 samples were taken from 5 distinct showings over 13 kilometers along a single geological contact.

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