27 May 2026
NEWS BRIEF: With APT Rotterdam tungsten prices up roughly 900% over twelve months, the January 1, 2027 DFARS procurement cliff on Chinese-origin tungsten now eight months away, and Canadian CMETC tax architecture actively subsidizing tungsten exploration, one Nevada junior is moving from historical production to modern-vintage drill targeting.
The Western tungsten supply problem has reached the operational tooling stage.
APT Rotterdam tungsten prices traded at approximately US$3,185 per metric tonne unit in early May 2026 — a roughly 900% increase over the past twelve months — driven by Chinese export licensing controls, the looming January 1, 2027 DFARS 252.225-7052 procurement cliff on Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean-origin tungsten products across the U.S. defense supply chain, and the Canadian Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit (CMETC) expansion that now actively subsidizes tungsten exploration under Bill C-15 (Royal Assent March 26, 2026).
Inside that landscape, Western Star Resources Inc., Almonty Industries Inc., Guardian Metal Resources PLC, EQ Resources Limited, and Energy Fuels Inc. collectively span the spectrum of Western-aligned tungsten and critical-mineral exposure.
Western Star Resources Inc. on May 21, 2026 announced that its technical team has mobilized to the Company's Rowland Tungsten Property in Elko County, Nevada, to commence the first phase of its 2026 field exploration program.
The initial program includes a high-resolution drone magnetic survey, systematic prospecting, sampling of historical waste dumps and workings, and a property-wide soil geochemistry campaign — designed to refine the Company's understanding of the prospective tungsten-bearing skarn horizons. The objective: generate drill-ready targets during the 2026 field season.
Blake Morgan, CEO and President of Western Star, framed the program as the first modern exploration program ever conducted on the past-producing Rowland tungsten system. The property has documented historical production but has not previously been evaluated using modern drone geophysics and systematic property-wide geochemistry. Mineralization at Rowland is hosted in skarn zones up to 100 feet wide, developed along intrusive contacts between Cretaceous-aged quartz monzonite stock and a host sequence of limestones, shales, and quartzites — with scheelite as the primary tungsten mineral. Drone geophysical results are expected in the coming weeks, with soil samples submitted for certified laboratory analysis.
The geological foundation under Rowland is substantial.
Historical production figures — based on previous records and not yet independently verified by the Company — include 4.5 tons at 3.38% WO₃ shipped in 1943 and approximately 1,000 tons at 0.5–1.0% WO₃ produced between 1954 and 1956. These represent the documented past-producing footprint that the modern 2026 program is designed to convert into structurally controlled, geochemically validated drill targets. Western Star expects to integrate the drone geophysical results, soil geochemistry, and historical production data into priority drill target generation, with drill permitting also progressing in parallel.
The macro environment under the program is unusually supportive. The January 1, 2027 DFARS 252.225-7052 procurement cliff — which codifies under 10 U.S.C. §4872, NDAA Section 844 (FY2021), and Section 854 (FY2024) — extends prohibitions across the entire defense supply chain from mining through finished tungsten metal powders, tungsten heavy alloys, samarium-cobalt magnets, NdFeB magnets, and tantalum metals/alloys. The Canadian CMETC framework — expanded under Budget 2025 (November 4, 2025) and enacted via Bill C-15 (Royal Assent March 26, 2026) — added tungsten to the eligible critical minerals list, providing a 30% non-refundable credit on top of the 100% Canadian Exploration Expense deduction for FT share agreements through March 31, 2027.
Western Star also recently engaged Plutus Invest & Consulting GmbH — a Bremen-based investor relations and marketing firm — under a mandate fee of €200,000 through April 30, 2027, positioning the Company for European market awareness during the back half of 2026 and through Q1 2027 — precisely the window during which the U.S. federal procurement cliff takes effect and the Company's maiden drill program is generating its first modern technical results. The scientific and technical information at Rowland has been reviewed by Jasper Mowatt, MAusIMM, a Qualified Person under NI 43-101.
