Almonty’s Production Debut at Sangdong Overshadowed by Index-Driven Stock Decline

Almonty begins processing at its massive South Korean tungsten mine, but shares fell 13% due to Russell index rebalancing. Strong fundamentals and a 45-year reserve base remain intact.

Almonty Industries has fired up the processing plant at its Sangdong tungsten mine in South Korea, transforming one of the world’s largest untapped deposits into a working operation. Yet the milestone was quickly eclipsed by a 13 percent slide in the company’s share price — a drop driven not by operational setbacks but by a technical quirk tied to its inclusion in the Russell indices.

The stock closed at C$22.33 on Thursday, well below its 50-day moving average of C$26.27 and roughly 33 percent off the 52-week high of C$33.35. Over the past 30 days the shares have retreated nearly 20 percent. The relative strength index sits at 39.4, edging toward oversold territory and suggesting the sell-off is more mechanical than fundamental. Despite the recent pullback, the longer-term picture remains strong: the stock has gained 85.62 percent since the start of the year and 233.78 percent over the past twelve months.

A $68 Million Ore Hoard Ready to Feed the Mill

To kick off operations, Almonty has accumulated roughly 140,000 tonnes of run-of-mine ore. Of that, 120,000 tonnes came from first-quarter output with an average grade of 0.24 percent tungsten trioxide, while the remaining 19,700 tonnes from the second quarter carry a significantly higher grade of 0.35 percent. The blended average stands at 0.25 percent — three times the grade at the company’s Panasqueira mine in Portugal. The stockpile carries an estimated gross value of around $68 million. Underground development has also advanced, with 214.6 metres of new workings completed.

First-quarter results underscore how quickly the business is scaling. Revenue surged 221 percent to $25.4 million, operating cash flow came in at $9.7 million, and EBITDA reached $6.1 million. To fund further expansion, Almonty placed a C$700 million convertible bond in June 2026 with a 2.25 percent coupon maturing in 2031. The company now holds cash of $259.9 million and working capital of $169.5 million.

Geopolitical Tailwinds and a Pentagon Deadline

Sangdong’s strategic importance extends well beyond the numbers. China controls roughly 85 percent of global tungsten production, a choke point that the U.S. Department of Defense aims to break. Starting in 2027, the Pentagon will ban tungsten sourced from China, Russia and North Korea in government contracts — a gap Almonty is poised to fill. Sangdong’s reserves of 58 million tonnes are enough to sustain mining for 45 years, and analysts estimate the mine could eventually meet up to 40 percent of non-Chinese tungsten demand. A second asset, the Browns Lake deposit in the United States, holds another 7.53 million tonnes of ore.

With production now underway and a freshly capitalized balance sheet, the recent stock weakness appears to be a temporary technical overhang. The operating foundation — higher revenue, a growing stockpile, and a long-term supply contract with the West’s largest buyer — has not changed. The real test will be whether the new processing line can deliver consistent output at full capacity, turning Sangdong into the reliable tungsten artery the West has been waiting for.