Tungsten Prices Have Surged Sixfold. The Search for New Supply Is On
Mississauga, Ontario, September 24th, 2026, FinanceWire
Most tungsten never makes headlines. About 60 percent goes into cemented carbide, the hard material in tools that cut, drill and mine other metals. Then the price moved. Between January 2025 and April 2026, tungsten prices rose about sixfold, the largest increase among the selected critical minerals assessed this year by the International Energy Agency. China mined roughly 79 percent of global supply in 2025 and has required export licenses since February 2025. The U.S. has not mined tungsten since 2015.
When a metal moves that far, old mining districts deserve another look.
Spark Energy Minerals Inc. (CSE: SPRK) (OTCPK: SPARF) (FSE: 8PC) has started tungsten exploration at its Seridó Project in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. Twelve permits cover 21,493 hectares in a district that has supplied most of Brazil's tungsten since the Second World War. The permits were granted in 2023 and 2024, before prices surged. Arapaima, home to Spark's gallium and rare earth discoveries in Minas Gerais, remains the company's principal focus. Seridó adds tungsten to the company's critical-minerals portfolio.
Modern Exploration Begins on Spark’s Permits
The Seridó mines were found at surface. Wartime demand opened Brejuí, near Currais Novos, in 1943. It is South America's largest scheelite mine and part of an ore body reported to have supplied about 70 percent of the district's roughly 55,000 tonnes of concentrate between 1942 and 1982. Spark has no interest in Brejuí, and its production history is not necessarily indicative of mineralization on Spark's permits.
No earlier tungsten exploration is recorded on Spark's permits. The current program is, to management's knowledge, the first systematic exploration of that ground using modern methods.
Public data provides a starting point. The highest of 1,888 government stream-sediment samples compiled by Spark, at 122.3 ppm tungsten, lies 1.6 kilometers from the boundary of Spark's first-priority Bodó permit. Scheelite was recorded in the panned concentrate at the same station. Most public samples are outside Spark's permits, however, and they are not necessarily indicative of mineralization on the project.
Scheelite gives the field crew a practical screening tool. Pale in daylight, it fluoresces blue-white under short-wave ultraviolet light. Every rock and float sample is examined under a lamp at the field base.
A Major Carbide Maker Is Paying Up Front
The price shock is visible at Kennametal Inc. (NYSE: KMT), which has made carbide tooling for more than 85 years. Fiscal 2026 sales rose 20 percent to US$2.36 billion, while inventories more than doubled to US$1.11 billion as higher tungsten prices lifted their carrying value. Kennametal also made advance payments to certain suppliers to secure raw materials, contributing to negative operating cash flow for the year.
A Historic Mine Returns to the Supply Chain
Almonty Industries Inc. (Nasdaq: ALM) shows what restarting Western supply can require. Its Sangdong Mine in South Korea, historically one of the world's largest tungsten producers, received its final operating certificates on September 17, and Almonty now describes the mine's first phase as commercially operational. Second-quarter revenue rose 498 percent to C$43.0 million as the average European benchmark price for tungsten climbed almost sevenfold from a year earlier. Almonty closed a US$800 million convertible note offering in June, ended the quarter with C$1.2 billion in cash and joined the Russell 1000. Spark has no relationship with Kennametal or Almonty.
The District Is Producing Again
Rio Grande do Norte's tungsten exports rose 356 percent in the first half of 2026, at an average price four times the prior-year level. Gold is being mined in the district as well. Aura Minerals Inc. (Nasdaq: AUGO) declared commercial production at Borborema in September 2025. The mine sits 18 kilometers from Spark's Lagoa permits. In its April 2026 update, Aura reported proven and probable reserves at Borborema, estimated under the SEC's S-K 1300 rules, of approximately 70.6 million tonnes grading 0.88 g/t gold, containing approximately 1.99 million ounces, with an estimated mine life of about 35 years.
Because the district also hosts a gold-tungsten-bismuth skarn mine 28 kilometers from the northern permits, Spark plans to assay its samples for all three metals. Spark holds no interest in any of these mines and has not verified their reported figures. Mineralization on neighboring properties is not necessarily indicative of mineralization on Spark's permits.
What Comes Back Before Year-End
Spark's geologists are mapping the marble and calc-silicate horizons that host scheelite, along with structures controlling the district's ore bodies. The work spans five target areas, with traverses following five targets defined from a government airborne survey. Stream-sediment and rock-chip sampling is underway, with samples to be submitted to an accredited laboratory under the program’s quality assurance and quality control procedures. Ground geophysics would follow any target confirmed in the field, ahead of drill planning. First results are expected before year-end.
The exploration program is still at an early stage, with no tungsten, gold or bismuth mineralization yet identified on Spark's permits. No samples had reached the laboratory as of September 16, and none of the identified targets has been drilled. Those results are still ahead, and the current fieldwork is designed to assess whether mineralization is present and identify targets that warrant follow-up geophysics and drilling.
That puts Seridó at an interesting starting point. Spark has assembled 21,493 hectares across a historic tungsten district, with its permits secured before the recent surge in tungsten prices, and is now applying modern exploration methods to ground that has seen limited systematic work. With regional tungsten production and exports gaining momentum and the strategic importance of non-Chinese supply increasing, the upcoming assays could provide the first meaningful indication of what Spark's Seridó land package may hold. The company expects those initial results before year-end.
The scientific and technical information about Spark's projects in this article is drawn from Spark's news release of September 16, 2026, and has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Fernando Tallarico, P.Geo., FSEG, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Spark, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, who is not independent of Spark.
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