Almonty’s Human Capital Puzzle: Can the Team Scale Fast Enough to Capitalize on Tungsten’s Price Frenzy?
27.05.2026 - 07:41:50 | boerse-global.de
Tungsten prices have more than tripled in five months, China has tightened its grip on supply, and Almonty Industries is finally ramping up production at its flagship Sangdong mine. Yet the biggest risk to the company’s multi-billion-dollar narrative isn’t ore grades or cash flow — it’s finding enough engineers, metallurgists and permitting experts to keep the expansion train on the tracks. Chief executive Lewis Black drove that message home at the CMI Summit 5 in Toronto on May 14, warning that “no team, no tungsten, no time” is the defining challenge for Western miners trying to break free from Chinese supply chains.
The skilled-labor shortage adds a layer of operational uncertainty to what is otherwise a remarkable turnaround story. Almonty posted first-quarter 2026 revenue of $25.4 million, a 221% jump from a year earlier, while adjusted EBITDA swung from a $2.4 million loss to a $6.1 million profit. The treasury holds $259.9 million in cash, and working capital stands at $169.5 million. Meanwhile, the Sangdong mine in South Korea — officially commissioned on March 17 — is transitioning from development to commercial operations. Phase 1 full production is on track for the third quarter of 2026, when the facility is expected to process roughly 640,000 tonnes of ore annually and produce about 2,300 tonnes of tungsten concentrate.
That volume will more than double under Phase 2, which targets a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per year by 2027 — equivalent to over 460,000 metric ton units (MTU) of tungsten. The ramp-up comes at a critical moment: the APT price, the benchmark for ammonium paratungstate, has surged from around $862 per MTU at the start of January 2026 to roughly $3,140 in mid-May, a gain of more than 200%. China controls over 80% of global tungsten production, and together with Russia and North Korea that share reaches about 95%. The European Union has classified tungsten as strategic under the Critical Raw Materials Act, aiming to cover at least 10% of its own demand by 2030.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Almonty?
Almonty is also building a second production hub in the United States. The Gentung Browns Lake Project in Beaverhead County, Montana, is slated to be production-ready in the second half of 2026, with a potential annual capacity of 140,000 MTU. More than 90% of that output is already tied up in long-term contracts with US defense and technology customers, ahead of a Pentagon mandate that from 2027 all tungsten must come from non-Chinese sources. The project sits in a historic tungsten district that supplied US strategic reserves during World War II and the Korean War.
The stock has ridden the wave hard. Trading at C$27.09, shares have doubled year to date and are up about 600% over the past 12 months. The 52-week high of C$32.07, set in April, is roughly 15% above current levels. The relative strength index sits at 74.5, signaling overbought conditions, although the price remains comfortably above both its 50-day moving average of C$26 and its 200-day line. Mining profit hit C$13 million in the latest quarter, up from just C$0.8 million a year earlier.
Market capitalisation has swelled to approximately C$7.35 billion, giving the company a price-to-sales multiple of 147 based on trailing twelve-month revenue of C$50 million. Analysts are betting on a massive revenue explosion: Bank of America forecasts C$670 million for the current year and C$1.32 billion for 2027, while Alliance Global’s Jake Sekelsky recently raised his price target to $26.25. Nine analysts peg the stock a “Strong Buy” on average. Whether that valuation holds depends less on geopolitics or price spikes and more on execution — specifically, whether Almonty can solve its human-capital puzzle faster than its peers and deliver Sangdong’s Phase 2 on schedule.
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