Tungsten carbide price: what sets it and what moves it

The market prices tungsten, and carbide is valued from it. A USGS recycling report says "the price of APT has become the reference price for upstream materials, such as tungsten ore concentrates, and downstream materials, such as tungsten metal powders and tungsten carbide powders."

APT (ammonium paratungstate) is a white crystalline powder, and most tungsten ore concentrate is processed chemically into it; how tungsten carbide is made follows it from ore to sintered part.

Scrap has no benchmark of its own. The same 2005 report notes that prices of tungsten-bearing scrap are not published on a routine basis.

The tungsten in a piece varies too. Stoichiometric tungsten carbide (WC) is 6.13% carbon by weight, which leaves 93.87% tungsten by our arithmetic. Cemented carbide combines WC with a tough metal binder such as cobalt, nickel or iron, ITIA says, and NTP says commercial cobalt grades generally run 50% to 97% tungsten carbide and 3% to 16% cobalt. ITIA puts cutting inserts typically above 80% tungsten, against 1.5% to 20% in high-speed steel (HSS).

Sources: USGS Open-File Report 2005-1028, tungsten recycling (data year 2000); ITIA, tungsten intermediates; NTP Report on Carcinogens background document, hard metals (2010); ITIA, cemented carbides (2010); ITIA, recycling of tungsten, part 1 (2018); ITIA, tungsten in steel (2008).

Most tungsten prices outside USGS are quoted in units of tungsten trioxide (WO3), the 2021 USGS yearbook says, and WO3 is 79.3% tungsten by weight. USGS's 2026 summary says a metric ton unit (mtu) of WO3 contains 7.93 kilograms of tungsten.

Put the two together and one mtu is 10 kg of WO3 (our arithmetic). The older short ton unit is 20 lb of WO3, holding 7.19 kg (15.86 lb) of tungsten. Divide an mtu price by 7.93 for a price per kilogram of tungsten; the 2005 USGS report prints $32 per mtu as $4 per kilogram, which is that division rounded.

Sources: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, tungsten; USGS Minerals Yearbook 2021, tungsten; USGS Open-File Report 2005-1028, tungsten recycling (data year 2000).

Tungsten prices swing hard, and during 2025 the APT price slightly more than doubled (our arithmetic). Each figure below carries the USGS edition that reported it; concentrate averages are Rotterdam in-warehouse prices.

Compare like with like: the $380 is a year's average for concentrate, while $331 and $675 are APT at the two ends of 2025. Divided by 7.93, those APT prices come to about $42 and $85 per kilogram of tungsten (our arithmetic).

Sources: USGS Open-File Report 2005-1028, tungsten recycling (data year 2000); USGS Minerals Yearbook 2021, tungsten; USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, tungsten.

China mines most of the world's tungsten, so its output moves the price. USGS's 2026 summary calls it the leading producer, importer and consumer of tungsten concentrates.

Export controls hit the price directly. In February 2025 China put new export controls on selected tungsten items, and USGS says prices rose sharply through 2025 as a result. The 2005 USGS report ties the 2000 jump in APT to China's efforts to control its tungsten exports.

USGS lists China's reserves at 2,500,000 t of a world total above 4,700,000 t.

The United States has had no commercial tungsten mine since 2015 and relied on imports for more than half of its apparent consumption in every year from 2021 to 2025. China, with Hong Kong, supplied 26% of US imports of tungsten ores, concentrates and other forms over 2021 to 2024, by the 2026 summary; the 2021 yearbook gives 22% for 2021, with tungsten carbide powder the largest item at 27% of what came from China.

Sources: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, tungsten; USGS Minerals Yearbook 2020, tungsten; USGS Minerals Yearbook 2021, tungsten; USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025, tungsten; USGS Open-File Report 2005-1028, tungsten recycling (data year 2000).

US Section 301 tariffs on Chinese tungsten rose in two steps, in 2024 and from January 1, 2025. The US Trade Representative's September 2024 notice listed tungsten carbide, subheading 2849.90.30, among the other critical minerals set to rise to 25% in 2024. On tungsten carbides, the notice said "imports from China have increased significantly in recent years, but alternative sources remain."

A December 2024 USTR decision raised three tungsten metal lines to 25% from January 1, 2025: 8101.94.00 (unwrought, including sintered bars and rods), 8101.99.10 (bars and rods other than sintered ones, profiles, plates, sheets, strip and foil) and 8101.99.80 (other tungsten articles). Later tariff actions are not covered here, so check the current schedule before relying on a rate.

Defense buying has its own rule. DFARS clause 252.225-7052 (May 2024) covers tungsten metal powder and tungsten heavy alloy from North Korea, China, Russia and Iran in contracts that carry it, subject to its exceptions, and does not name cemented carbide. From January 1, 2027 it reaches material mined, refined or separated in those countries, not only melted or produced there.

Sources: USTR, 89 FR 76581 (September 18, 2024); Federal Register, December 16, 2024 (Section 301 notice); USTR press release, December 11, 2024; DFARS 252.225-7052 (May 2024).

Cobalt is the second price inside most carbide. USGS's 2026 summary says about 9% of the cobalt used in the US goes into cemented carbides for cutting and wear-resistant uses.

Supply is concentrated in one country. Congo (Kinshasa) mined an estimated 73% of the world's cobalt in 2025, and that February it temporarily banned cobalt exports to address oversupply and low prices. In October it replaced the ban with export quotas of up to 96,600 tons of contained cobalt a year for 2026 and 2027.

The average US spot price of cobalt cathode was $16.77 a pound in 2024 and an estimated $21 in 2025, about 25% higher by our arithmetic.

The 2005 USGS report adds that higher cobalt prices encourage the recycling of cemented carbides.

Sources: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, cobalt; USGS Open-File Report 2005-1028, tungsten recycling (data year 2000).

The sources link scrap to the market in three ways and stop short of a price formula: APT is the reference price for carbide powder, chemical recycling turns scrap back into APT, and cobalt prices shift how much carbide gets recycled.

The route depends on form, hard scrap or soft (both defined in the carbide glossary). The zinc process, a USGS report says, uses hard scrap such as used tool inserts and is not a purification process, so careful sorting and removal of oil, solder and refractory coatings is essential.

ITIA says most soft scrap (cutting or grinding sludge, sweepings, powders, turnings) and most unsorted hard scrap is recycled by chemical conversion into virgin-quality APT. None of the sources behind this page gives the share of the APT price that scrap fetches.

Sources: USGS Open-File Report 2005-1028, tungsten recycling (data year 2000); USGS Open-File Report 01-349 (1998 data); ITIA, recycling of tungsten, part 2 (2019).

Tell us what you have, about how much it weighs, and send photos, and we will quote that lot. The quote form asks what form it is in: inserts (indexable tips that clamp into a holder), end mills (rotating milling cutters), drills, rod, brazed tips, grindings or a mixed bucket.

Photograph the whole pile, then close views of coatings, braze lines and attached steel. You can also email help@carbidebuyerus.com or call us.

Sellers anywhere in the US can ship to us and we pay the shipping, or we pick up in every city in California, Arizona and Nevada. We pay cash where state law allows.

A worn insert or a snapped drill still holds the tungsten the market prices, so used tooling is worth a quote; selling tungsten carbide covers both routes.