Almonty's $700M Convertible and Molybdenum Bonanza Bolster a 454% Rally Built on China-Free Tungsten Supply

Amid China's tungsten export cuts, Almonty's Sangdong mine in South Korea starts production, boosting sales 221% and turning cash flow positive. Stock surges 454% as Western chipmakers secure critical supply.

When Showa Denko Kanto and Central Glass warned Samsung and SK Hynix that their tungsten hexafluoride stocks were running critically low, the clock started ticking for Japan’s chipmaking sector. A July 2026 production halt looms — and the only major non-Chinese mine capable of plugging the gap just switched on its processing plant. Almonty Industries, long dismissed as a speculative Canadian junior, has become the West’s critical-material lifeline.

The Sangdong mine in South Korea began commercial operations in March 2026, processing 640,000 tonnes of ore annually to yield roughly 2,300 tonnes of tungsten concentrate. That transition from explorer to producer is already showing up in the books. First-quarter sales surged 221% to 25.4 million Canadian dollars, operating cash flow swung from deep negative to positive 9.7 million, and adjusted EBITDA flipped from a loss to a 6.1-million-dollar profit. The company is no longer selling a promise; it is delivering a revenue stream.

Beijing’s tightening grip on rare-metal exports provided the perfect tailwind. In late 2025, China slashed tungsten exports in retaliation for U.S. tariffs, and by January 2026 only 15 state-approved companies were allowed to ship products. With China, Russia and North Korea controlling roughly 95% of global tungsten supply, the world outside those borders is scrambling. The Pentagon will be barred from buying Chinese tungsten from January 2027, and the U.S. has not commercially mined the metal since 2015.

Almonty is not stopping at tungsten. On June 16, 2026, it reported progress on a molybdenum drilling programme directly adjacent to Sangdong. Thirty-seven percent of the planned holes are complete, and results confirm high-grade mineralisation. The timing is uncanny: South Korea is facing a genuine molybdenum supply squeeze, with government stockpiles dwindling and private companies being urged to secure resources. Almonty effectively sits on the doorstep of the problem and is drilling the solution.

The market has responded with a structural re-rating rather than a speculative spike. Almonty shares have gained 454% over twelve months, pushing the market capitalisation to around 4.4 billion euros. Inclusion in the Russell 1000 and Russell 3000 at the end of May forced institutional buying that a junior miner could never attract organically. Still, the stock has pulled back 21% from its 52-week high of C$33.35, set on April 17, closing recently at C$26.38. The RSI sits at 52 — neutral momentum after an extraordinary run — while annualised 30-day volatility of nearly 99% serves as a reminder that mining equities react violently to operating news and commodity prices.

To fund the next leg of growth, Almonty closed a heavily oversubscribed convertible note in early June — reported at $700 million U.S. and $773 million in Canadian terms — carrying a 2.25% coupon and maturing in 2031. The capital will underpin a potential Phase 2 expansion at Sangdong, doubling capacity by 2027. Institutional investors are betting on delivery capacity, not just a geopolitical thesis.

That thesis has been methodically embedded into the company’s structure. In April 2026, Almonty moved its global headquarters from Toronto to Dillon, Montana, and on June 1 it named Jorge Beristain, a former Deutsche Bank mining analyst, as chief financial officer. Shareholders later confirmed two retired U.S. generals, Gustave F. Perna and Alan Estevez, to the board with over 99% approval. The message is clear: Almonty sells supply-chain resilience, not cost optimisation.

The company’s Gentung project in Montana could enter production in the second half of 2026, just ahead of the Pentagon procurement ban. Decades of just-in-time logistics are giving way to a geopolitically driven scramble for domestic sources. Almonty’s journey from a development-stage hope to an industrial heavyweight is all but complete. The next test is no longer the mine start-up — it is the quarterly margins that will prove whether the structural ascent can be converted into sustainable profitability.