Putting Montana’s tungsten district back to work

There are too few producing Western tungsten mines to meet demand. Without new mines the entire market will contract - leaving even the established producers without customers.

In Beaverhead County, Montana, a remote corner holds a deposit that once helped supply the US national strategic stockpile. The mine produced tungsten commercially until 1975 and much of what was built over decades of operation is still there, from the underground workings in the mountain above it to the water rights and the plant permit. For the last fifty years, it has been waiting for a new owner to revive its capabilities.

Enter Almonty Industries. The company first evaluated what is now the Gentung project when it began systematically assessing tungsten assets across the United States. Gentung topped the list. "Almonty has been looking for tungsten assets in the USA since 2012," says Nuno Alves, Almonty's Director of Mining. "Gentung was always at the top." A formal approach to the project's previous owners followed in 2017. By the time Alves made his first site visit in August 2025, the deposit was already well known to him in technical terms. The acquisition closed in October of that year, with Almonty acquiring 100% ownership for $9.75mn - a cash and share transaction that also included the existing plant permit, water rights, and processing equipment.

A deposit fifty years in waiting

The Gentung project holds independently verified total mineral resources of 7.53mn tonnes - believed to be one of the largest tungsten deposits of its grade known in the United States - with historical and modern test work demonstrating tungsten recovery above 90%. The deposit runs along a defined mineralised corridor stretching 2,500 feet, with a further 6,000 feet of the same formation extending beyond the current resource boundary - ground that remains largely unexplored. Initial design expectations predict output of approximately 140,000 metric ton units per year.

The company plans to mine downward through the ore body in horizontal levels, using waste material from the processing plant to backfill the excavated chambers underground - a method that stabilizes the ground and minimizes surface waste. The precise approach will be confirmed once the team has direct access to the underground environment. The processing plant will be built on the footprint of the same site that once housed its own ammonium paratungstate facility. "We don't need to invent the wheel," says Alves. "We have the old technical studies. Many projects face complex technical challenges. We just need to rebuild what was there before."

That philosophy - finding assets where the foundational work is already done - is characteristic of how Almonty approaches its acquisitions. It also explains why Gentung was the company's first choice rather than a late discovery. In a market where, as Alves says, the US has no operating commercial tungsten mine and national stockpiles have been allowed to run down, the value of a permitted, infrastructure-ready asset is considerable.

The cost of mining in a democracy

However, the economics of US mining are not simple, says Almonty CEO Lewis Black: "It's double the cost to mine in the US as it is in Europe. US mines work well when combined with other assets in the same company from lower-cost jurisdictions - because then you can atomize the cost. Almonty has Korea, which is very low cost, Portugal which is sort of mid-cost, and high cost in the US. Combine all three and you end up with a unit cost that is sustainable." It's a distinction Black considers important - government support can change with an administration and a cost model that depends on it may not last.

The single biggest obstacle between Gentung and first production is not technical and it is not financial. "Administration," says Alves. "Just that. We have the money. The deposit is well known. It is mature in technical terms. We have the footprint of the old plant. We have water, land, power, skilled labor and good local mining contractors."

What Alves means is permitting - the layered process of federal, state and local regulatory approvals that any US mining operation must navigate before a single tonne of ore moves. "It's a mind-numbing slog," agrees Black. "That's the price you pay for working in a democracy. The pros easily outweigh the cons, but the cons are a miserable journey. It's not for the faint-hearted."

Rebuilding from the ground up

On the ground in Dillon - a small city in the heart of Montana, where Almonty relocated its corporate headquarters in April 2026 - the team is deliberately lean. Steven Allen, Almonty's Chief Operating Officer, is overseeing the build-out. "We have established the main office in Dillon," he says. "We anticipate hiring additional personnel from the local area over the next year, ranging from operators and laborers to information technology and environmental science." The company has opened accounts with local businesses and partnered with agencies across the county. "We appreciate the strong support and acceptance from the town of Dillon, Beaverhead County, and the State of Montana," says Allen.

Almonty has also begun investing in the trades training program at the local Beaverhead County High School. "We don't want people leaving the area to look for work," says Black. "We want to make sure that if you want to be an electrician, a plumber or a boilermaker, there's a job for you so the family unit stays intact. We did the same at our Korean mine."

It's a region that knows what it lost when the mines closed. The United States once operated hundreds of tungsten mines. The country was, in Alves's phrase, "swimming in tungsten". Today, stockpiles are depleted. China controls over 80% of global supply and has cut export quotas consistently. The 2027 deadline in US defense procurement legislation, which restricts Chinese tungsten from entering the defense supply chain, is approaching - and with it, pressure on regulators to accelerate domestic permitting. "It constitutes an opportunity," says Alves, "because it should help nudge the administration - and administration is what's delaying the restart."

Almonty is targeting production readiness at Gentung in the second half of 2026. The last time this district produced tungsten, America had hundreds of mines and didn't need to worry about scarcity. Now it has none, and the question is whether the administrative machinery of a democracy can move at the pace the moment demands.