Almonty's Sangdong Twin-Engine Strategy Gains Traction as Molybdenum Drilling Confirms Grades and Tungsten Revenue Surges

Almonty accelerates molybdenum drilling in South Korea as G7 targets China's rare earth dominance; tungsten revenue surges 221% and US DFARS ban boosts non-Chinese supply.

The calculus for critical mineral supply chains is shifting faster than most investors anticipated. At the G7 summit this week, leaders pledged that no single country would supply more than 60 percent of the group's rare earth imports by 2030 — a direct shot at China, which controls roughly 70 percent of global production and over 90 percent of processing. For Almonty Industries, the political alignment could not be better timed. The Canadian miner is expanding its footprint in South Korea’s Gangwon province, where it is already building a tungsten operation and now accelerating a molybdenum drilling campaign that is drawing attention from Seoul’s highest levels.

South Korea’s national molybdenum stockpiles have dwindled to a critical low, prompting the government to publicly urge private companies to secure their own supply. Almonty has responded with speed. At its Sangdong site, 37 percent of a planned 26-hole, 12,000-metre drilling program is already complete, and early results show grades consistent with historical data. That confirmation supports a high-grade zone of 16 million tonnes grading 0.4 percent MoS? within a total resource of 120 million tonnes at 0.13 percent. The project sits adjacent to Almonty’s producing tungsten mine, allowing shared infrastructure for processing and development.

Molybdenum prices have climbed roughly 23.5 percent over the past year to 592.34 CNY per kilogram, and Almonty has locked in an exclusive off-take agreement with SeAH M&S, a subsidiary of South Korea’s SeAH Group, covering the entire mine-life output. The metal is essential for hardening steel and superalloys used in aerospace, defence, nuclear energy, and petrochemicals, with growing demand from semiconductors and renewables adding to the pressure.

The tungsten side of the business is already generating momentum. First-quarter 2026 revenue surged 221 percent to 25.4 million Canadian dollars, buoyed by a sharp rise in the spot price for ammonium paratungstate. Almonty held 259.9 million CAD in cash at the end of March, with working capital of 169.5 million CAD. The company’s balance sheet received a further boost from a heavily oversubscribed 800 million CAD convertible note placement, which management says will fund Sangdong’s expansion and reinforce Almonty’s position as a leading non-Chinese tungsten supplier to Western defence and technology customers.

The regulatory landscape is tilting in Almonty’s favour. From January 1, 2027, the US DFARS rule will ban Chinese tungsten from all defence supply chains, sharpening the need for alternatives from allied nations. Meanwhile, Almonty’s equity is set to join the Russell 1000 and Russell 3000 indices on June 29, 2026, triggering forced buying from index-tracking funds that have not previously held the stock.

On the market, Almonty shares closed at 26.73 Canadian dollars, having more than doubled since the start of the year. The stock sits roughly 20 percent below its 52-week high, reflecting the caution some investors apply to the pre-profitability phase. The consensus analyst rating remains “Buy” with a price target of 25.00 CAD.

With the molybdenum drilling programme on track to fully confirm the resource, Almonty aims to begin extraction without delay. Sangdong is shaping up to deliver two critical metals from a single mine in a politically stable allied jurisdiction — exactly the kind of proposition that G7 policymakers, Pentagon planners, and South Korean industrial buyers are all actively seeking. The question now is whether operational execution can keep pace with the geopolitical tailwinds.