Episode summary
The Tungsten Market Is Warning of an Upcoming War | Odd Lots
Odd Lots
· · Hosts: Tracy Alloway, Joe Weisenthal · Guests: David Fickling
Summary
Tungsten is being treated as a small but strategically important commodity whose price and mine economics swing with war risk. David Fickling argues that it behaves like “a century old missing prediction market for war,” because mines open when conflict looks likely and shut when peace returns. He uses the Dolphin Mine in Tasmania as an example: it opened in 1917, reopened in 1938, survived through Korea and Vietnam, and then closed in 1990 before restarting again as geopolitical tensions rise.
Fickling says tungsten matters because of its density and melting point, which make it useful for armor-piercing projectiles, shrapnel, drill bits, turbine blades and some industrial catalysts. But the market is tiny, opaque, and dominated by China, which he says has the best geology and about 80% of global supply. That makes it hard to finance new non-Chinese mines: there is no futures market, prices can swing sharply, and banks cannot easily underwrite projects.
The discussion also turns to policy. Fickling argues that if governments want supply outside China, they may need floor prices or other medium-term price support for a small list of truly strategic minerals. Otherwise, speculative bursts and Chinese export controls can briefly lift prices, then leave new mines stranded again.
Key takeaways
- David Fickling says tungsten acts like a war prediction market: capital flows in when conflict risk rises and disappears when it fades.
- He says the Dolphin Mine matters because it could supply about 2.5% of the global market, or roughly one-sixth of the free-world market.
- Fickling says China dominates tungsten because it has the best geology and about 80% of global supply, not just because of policy.
- He argues that new tungsten mines outside China probably need some form of floor price or medium-term price support to get financed.
- The episode says tungsten demand is being pulled by both military use and industrial uses like tooling, turbine blades, and some AI-related hardware.
Notable quotes
“you can look at it as a bit like a a sort of century old missing prediction market for war basically”
“it has operated like a prediction market in the in the sense that people making real investments”
“It's incredibly dense. I think one of the things that attracts the crypto to tungsten is it's not just incredibly dense”
“most tungsten now 80% of it is just tungsten carbide. It's tools and you can buy it in your local tool shop”
“There simply is no futures market in this because it's such a tiny market”
How the episode opens
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts, radio, news. — Hello and welcome to another episode of the OddLotss podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal. — And I'm Tracy Aloway. — Tracy, I'm um I'm in a mood of a little bit of heartbreak this morning. Oh, mood of a little bit of heartbreak. That sounds like a a country single, doesn't it?
That's right. No, — You're you're singing I know what you're sad about. You're singing the tungsten cube blues. — The tungsten blues. I'm actually a little shook. In 2022, remember the tungsten cube hype? — Unfortunately, — I bought one and it was the only. And it feels so good. Like a nice big block of tungsten in your hand feels so good. It's so unexpectedly heavy. probably like a little like wild autism like I like related like sort of like heavy things like weighted blankets and heavy objects and I was going to bring it to this episode because I know you you love props sometimes you
I do like a good — And I was like oh I'll bring a prop I couldn't find it on my desk so we did a desk move recently and either somehow I I hope I still find it either it got misplaced in the move or because the value of tungsten has gone up so much maybe someone stole it
I think I know which one it is show. I think I know. Let me just say — I have a messy desk, too. — For listeners who were lucky enough to have missed out on the tungsten cube craze, there was a moment where for some reason it was mostly crypto bros on Twitter all seemed to go nuts for buying these tungsten cubes and then showing pictures of them on social media and then
Promptly like Joe forgot about them.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- tungsten mining
- geopolitics
- war manufacturing
- china production
- commodity investment
Watch the episode
Watch “The Tungsten Market Is Warning of an Upcoming War | Odd Lots” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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