OVERVIEW OF THE GLOBAL TUNGSTEN MARKET. PART 2. COMMODITY FLOWS OF RAW TUNGSTEN PRODUCTS

Abstract

Link for citation: Boyarko G.Yu. Overview of the global tungsten market. Part 2. Commodity flows of raw tungsten products. Bulletin of the Tomsk Polytechnic University. Geo Аssets Engineering, 2023, vol. 334, no. 5, рр.37-53. In Rus. The relevance of the work is caused by the need to study the problems of quite volatile world market of tungsten raw materials. Objective: to study the dynamics of global commodity flows (production, import, export, consumption) of raw tungsten products (tungsten ores and concentrates, ammonium paratungstate, tungsten waste and scrap); to assess the criticality of the world market of raw tungsten products. Methods: statistical, graphical, logical. Results. The raw tungsten product global market is very complex. The world production of primary tungsten raw materials increased from 4 to 7 kt 100 % W/year in 1913–1915, from 75 to 90 kt 100 % W/year in 2011–2020 with a growth rate of +2,9 %/year. Utilization of secondary tungsten raw materials in the world increased from 2–3 kt 100 % W/year in 1970s to 14–23 kt 100 % W/year in 2008–2020 with an increase rate of +4,3 %/year. The share of global utilization of tungsten waste from the amount of primary and secondary tungsten raw materials increased from 5–6 % in 1970s to 21 % in 2019. In 1970–1980, there was a period of usual low-growth global consumption of tungsten products with the growth rate of tungsten raw materials demand for +3,4 %/year. There was a strong decrease in demand for tungsten products (–6,9 %/year) in the military sphere (the end of the Cold War) and priority shift in the trade of tungsten raw material comodities (increase in the role of ammonium paravolframate trade), reducing the role of Russia in the tungsten market (the consequences of the stagnation of the Russian economy, primarily metalworking) in the 1990s. In the 2000–2010s, there was a rapid growth in global demand for final tungsten commodity products and, accordingly, global demand and supply of tungsten raw materials, with an increase in demand of +6,4 %/year. At the same time, there is a trend of decreasing share in world trade in tungsten raw materials from the amount of extracted primary and recycled secondary raw materials by volume and cost, respectively, 39 and 47 % in 1970 to 21 and 27 % in 2020. The share of raw materials in world trade in tungsten products decreased from 70–80 % by volume and 60–70 % of the cost in 1970–1980s, respectively, up to 42–55 and 15–20 % in the 2010s. China dominates in the global production, processing and consumption of raw tungsten products, therefore, its trade policy to restrain (quota) exports of these goods determines the dynamics of the world market of tungsten raw materials. In international trade, China has changed the strategy of exporting raw materials to importing them, while becoming the leader in importing tungsten concentrates. Other industrialized countries – consumers of tungsten raw materials – the USA, Germany, Britain, France, Japan and South Korea – have become critically dependent on tungsten raw material imports (the share of imports is over 50 % of consumption) and will remain so in the foreseeable future.