Almonty Locks In Sandvik Offtake and Rwanda Venture to Bypass Chinese Tungsten Supply
Published on 09/19/2026 at 08:50 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Almonty Industries is moving on two fronts at once, stitching together a supply chain for tungsten that deliberately sidesteps China's dominance in the critical industrial metal. The Canadian miner has paired a long-term sales commitment for its idle Spanish mine with a fresh joint venture in East Africa, betting that Western buyers will pay a premium for ore that never passes through Chinese hands.
Sandvik subsidiary commits to Spanish tailings
Under the agreement finalized this week, Wolfram Bergbau und Hütten AG — the Austrian arm of Sweden's Sandvik group — will take at least roughly 1,720 tonnes of contained WO? from the reprocessing of historical tailings at Los Santos. That figure represents about a fifth of the total estimated tailings stockpile at the site, which sits some 50 kilometers south of Salamanca and has been on care and maintenance since February 2020.
The contract is structured as take-or-pay, obliging the buyer to pay for the material whether or not it is ultimately collected. Almonty will also receive a conditional one-time payment of USD 3.0 million for the transfer of the offtake rights. For the Sandvik unit, the deal secures access to concentrate at a time when alternative sources are thinning out; it operates the only fully integrated tungsten smelter outside Asia and Russia, located in Sankt Martin im Sulmtal, Austria.
Rwanda joint venture adds African supply
Days earlier, on Monday, Almonty signed a binding agreement with the Rwandan government to create Almonty Rwanda Pty Ltd. The company will hold a 75% stake, with Rwanda taking 25% in exchange for contributing the Shyorongi exploration concession and a mineral processing license.
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The venture is designed to collect, pre-concentrate and export tungsten ore and tailings material from smaller license holders across the country. Reuters reported that the project draws support from a US economic accord aimed at securing critical minerals outside Chinese supply chains — giving Almonty a route to process material on site and ship concentrate through the new entity.
A template for Europe's old mine waste
For Almonty, the Spanish contract marks its first commercial-scale processing of European tailings. CEO Lewis Black has said the use of mobile plants should sharply cut permitting timelines, and the company is weighing whether to replicate the approach at its Portuguese Panasqueira mine and other European sites.
The timing is not incidental. From January 1, 2027, strict US defense procurement rules will bar tungsten sourced from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran down to the mine level. That deadline is pushing industrial and government buyers to lock in non-Chinese supply well before it takes effect.
Analysts bullish, the tape less so
D.A. Davidson reaffirmed its buy rating on Almonty and kept its USD 33.00 price target, a sign that at least some on Wall Street see the dual announcements as strategically significant.
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The market's immediate reaction was more muted. In German trading the stock changed hands at EUR 12.01, down 2.4% on the day. Shares closed Friday at EUR 12.07. Despite recent volatility, the equity has climbed about 51% since the start of the year.
Tungsten's hardness and heat resistance make it indispensable in industrial manufacturing and toolmaking, which is why secured, traceable origins of the metal have become a selling point in their own right. By turning old mine waste into cash and opening a new African channel, Almonty is positioning itself squarely in the middle of that shift.
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