Widening Tungsten Price Gap: Europe Stalls Amid Global Scarcity as Scrap Prices Surge [SMM Analysis]

As of last Friday, SMM data showed that the CIF Rotterdam port price for ammonium paratungstate (APT) was $1,000-1,050/mtu, with an average price of $1,025/mtu, up $25/mtu from January 8; the price for ferrotungsten (Rotterdam warehouse) was $142-149/kg W, with an average price of $145.5/kg W, up $3.5/kg W from January 8.

The European tungsten market is currently in a state of "having prices but no volume." Although prices in the Chinese market continued to surge, actual transactions in Europe were sluggish last week, with APT offers mainly concentrated at $990-1,000/mtu. This week, although suppliers and traders raised their offers to $1,000-1,050/mtu, transactions at the high end also stalled.

In the tungsten scrap market, mainstream quotations in India continued to rise weekly, with the current FOB India price for cemented carbide scrap (W 90-92%) reported at $92-95/kg. According to feedback from downstream customers, local tungsten material prices are almost doubling weekly, resulting in significant cost pressure for end-users. In Europe, scrap sources currently rely more on local traders, with some European traders stating that the price and payment terms for Indian scrap are difficult to accept, leading to limited imports. The current price for local European cemented carbide scrap (W 90%) is about €70/kg (approximately $82/kg), and further price increases are expected this week.

From a global market perspective, the tight supply situation is difficult to change in the short term, and the flow of mine-side resources has become the focus of national resource reserves. The shortage of raw materials in the international market is expected to persist, and the existing supply-demand structure and industry chain pattern are unlikely to be reshaped in the near term. In the near term, the European market may see constrained rapid price increases due to insufficient transaction follow-through, but the price spread between domestic and overseas markets is expected to gradually narrow by benchmarking against Chinese prices. In the long run, the overseas demand gap continues to exist, the upward price trend is clear, and midstream smelters are likely to shift more toward scrap recycling, making tungsten scrap an important driver of future tungsten price increases.