Tungsten commercialization strategy
REOS–Virunga Critical announced a corporate strategy this week to commercialize tungsten, highlighting U.S. government policy as part of the context for the move. The release positions tungsten commercialization within critical‑minerals and onshoring discussions. (prnewswire.com)
ReoStar Energy said April 13 that it is folding a tungsten business into its newly combined company with Virunga Critical and pitching it as a U.S.-aligned supply play. (prnewswire.com) The company said Virunga Critical has completed its acquisition of ReoStar Energy and is pursuing a reverse takeover transaction to merge the businesses. It said tungsten is its first product available in commercial quantities, with mining running at 50 metric tons a month and 120 metric tons in inventory at 50% purity. (prnewswire.com) A week earlier, Virunga Critical said it had bought a 54,750,000-share majority stake in ReoStar Energy and installed a new board that includes mining executive Andrew Groves and financier Alan Kessler. The company described itself as a Delaware-based critical-minerals group focused on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (markets.ft.com) Tungsten is a hard metal used mostly in cemented carbides, the wear-resistant material in cutting and drilling tools for construction, metalworking, mining, and oil and gas. The United States Geological Survey said 60% of U.S. tungsten consumption went into those carbide parts. (usgs.gov, pubs.usgs.gov) The U.S. Geological Survey said tungsten has not been mined commercially in the United States since 2015, and net import reliance was 50% of apparent consumption in 2024. Its 2025 Mineral Commodity Summaries said China supplied 27% of U.S. tungsten imports from 2020 through 2023 and still dominated world production and exports. (pubs.usgs.gov) The federal policy backdrop has shifted in the past year. The Interior Department’s final 2025 critical-minerals list includes tungsten among 60 minerals tied to economic and national-security risks, and the White House said in a January 14, 2026 proclamation that processed critical minerals are essential to defense, infrastructure, and consumer-goods supply chains. (usgs.gov, whitehouse.gov) Defense procurement rules are tightening too. Federal acquisition rules say that starting January 1, 2027, restrictions on tungsten metal powder and tungsten heavy alloy in Pentagon contracts extend back to mining or feedstock production in China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. (acquisition.gov, ecfr.gov) Virunga is using that policy shift to frame a broader pitch around onshoring and allied supply chains rather than a single mine. In its April 13 release, the company said it wants a portfolio spanning tungsten, tin, tantalum, antimony, lithium, niobium, rhodium, and rare earth elements from the Congo and nearby regions. (prnewswire.com) The near-term test is whether the company can turn a 50-ton-a-month tungsten stream into a bankable business before those 2027 sourcing rules arrive. Its own timeline points to higher-grade production only after mine development in late 2027. (prnewswire.com)
