A Mine That Predicts Wars Is Reopening to Arm the US Against China
This Mine Predicts Major Wars. It's Opening Again
The Dolphin Mine on Australia's King Island, a tungsten deposit that has opened and closed with global conflicts for over a century, is being revived amid a critical minerals arms race. With tungsten prices surging nearly eight-fold since 2025, the mine's operator, Group 6 Metals, is betting on renewed demand from Western governments seeking to secure supply chains against Chinese dominance. The mine, which last closed in 1990, now faces the challenge of repaying $16 million in debt while extracting ore from flooded tunnels.
The phone started ringing in January, and it hasn’t stopped ringing.
- throw0101d
Bloomberg's Odd Lots interivew on this with the author, "The Tungsten Market Is Warning of an Upcoming War":
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xLxM-TzBPY
* https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/the-tungsten-market-is-warnin...
* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tungsten-market-is...
- KaiserPro
Ok so I idd some digging and bloomberg is light on analysis on this one.
The graph that got me wondering as to why the price has spiked was the mined/produced tonnes of tungsten from what I can see.
I naturally assumed, like the article is hinting, that demand has risen significantly.
It appears that china has limited exports and the USA has demanded that military applications needs to be sourced for people they like, rather than china russia and north korea. Demand has apparently increased by about 4%, but that doesn't explain the 10x price jump.
All I know is my carbide tooling is going to cost a shitload more now.
- Ccecil
A company local makes mining trucks [1].
At one event I was at I spoke with someone who was tied into the company and they said that when wars happen their business picks up because copper mining starts back up. War apparently needs a lot of copper too.
I never looked into it to verify but it seemed like an interesting bit of data.
- Planktonne
> ...attracting the attention of many players, including the president of the United States. Donald Trump’s sons are collaborating with the family of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on a tungsten project in Kazakhstan, according to the New York Times. The US government is considering supporting the mining venture with federal loans.
Fascinating to see how completely normalised this sort of thing has become in the US.
- thisisauserid
Dolphin tungsten mine in Australia.