Almonty’s Sangdong Starts Spinning Ore Into Cash, but the Market Wants Proof

Almonty Industries starts ore processing at Sangdong mine after 32 years, but stock slides 30% from highs as investors await revenue; tungsten prices near record levels.

After 32 years of silence, the Sangdong mine in South Korea is grinding ore again — but the market's reaction to Almonty Industries’ milestone has been as mixed as the grades coming out of its stockpile. The company began processing its accumulated ore stock at the Yeongwol facility last week, flipping the switch from mine developer to revenue generator. Yet the stock’s recent slide suggests investors are waiting for the numbers to back up the narrative.

Sangdong’s transition from construction to throughput marks the end of a cycle that began when Almonty took over the project in 2015 and invested more than $100 million in a modern underground operation and processing plant. The mine was once one of the world’s largest tungsten producers before a prolonged price collapse shut it down in the early 1990s. Now, with Western buyers scrambling for tungsten supplies outside China, the restart could not be better timed. Tungsten and APT prices remain near record levels, recently trading around $3,040 per metric ton unit.

The company is initially feeding the mill with material that has accumulated during the build phase. At the end of the first quarter of 2026, Almonty reported 120,000 tonnes of ore averaging 0.24% tungsten trioxide in inventory. Since then, an additional 19,700 tonnes with a significantly higher grade of 0.35% have been added, bringing the total processing batch to roughly 139,700 tonnes. The illustrative gross value of that material stands at about $68 million, though the real test will be how quickly that stockpile converts into shippable concentrate and, ultimately, revenue.

“The plant is running, throughput has finally begun, and all this in an extremely favorable price environment for tungsten,” CEO Lewis Black said in a statement, underscoring the strategic window Almonty is now exploiting.

The operational progress has not gone unnoticed by analysts. Oppenheimer raised its price target on the stock to $25 US, reaffirming an “Outperform” rating. Alliance Global set a fair value of $26.25 US, both firms citing the Sangdong ramp-up as the catalyst. A broader “Buy” consensus with a $25 CAD target has formed on the back of Almonty’s ambition to become the leading Western tungsten producer, including plans for a downstream tungsten oxide plant.

Adding to the structural tailwind, Almonty was added to the Russell 1000 and Russell 3000 indices on June 29, 2026, a move that increases visibility among institutional and passive fund managers.

But the share price tells a more cautious story. After closing at 23.14 CAD on Friday — a daily gain of 4.00% — the stock still sits 30.55% below its 52-week high of 33.35 CAD reached in April. The past 30 days have been rough, with shares losing 16.73%, though the weekly move was nearly flat at +0.61%. Longer-term numbers remain staggering: the stock is up 92.35% year-to-date and 245.89% from a year ago. The low of 4.70 CAD from July 2025 underscores just how far the rally has come, even if the current level represents a significant pullback from the peak.

Technically, Almonty is trading just below its 50-day moving average of 26.10 CAD and the 100-day average of 25.22 CAD, while the 200-day moving average of 18.34 CAD sits well below — a sign that the long-term uptrend is still intact. The RSI of 43.4 sits in neutral territory, suggesting neither overbought nor oversold conditions. The annualized 30-day volatility of 90.68% reflects how quickly sentiment can shift on news from South Korea.

Whether the recent operational milestone can reverse the technical slide depends entirely on execution speed. Almonty is starting with lower-grade stockpile material, expecting grades to improve as the process matures. At full capacity, the company says Sangdong could supply about 40% of global tungsten demand outside China. Meanwhile, a parallel drilling program at the Sangdong molybdenum project has already completed 37% of the planned 26 holes over 12,000 meters, adding another layer to the resource base.

The coming months will show whether the $68 million worth of stockpile actually translates into shipments and cash flow. Friday’s bounce from the multi-month decline suggests some investors are treating the pullback as an entry point into a company that has finally turned the corner from developer to producer. But the real catalyst — the first revenue numbers — has yet to arrive.