Reopening Sangdong: how a Korean tungsten mine became a strategic asset

As goverments seek to reduce dependence on single-country sources of critical metals, Sangdong’s redevelopment offers a practical template for restoring tungsten supply while meeting modern environmental and social expectations.

Once, Sangdong was one of the richest mining towns in South Korea. Then the tungsten mine closed in 1992, families left and it looked like the place would become another dying one-industry town. According to Bloomberg, its population fell to about 97 per cent from its peak to around 1,000 residents, and in 2021 it was officially listed by the Korean government as being at risk of “extinction”. In 2022 the local high school graduated three seniors and enrolled no new freshmen. The school, and with it the town’s future, was at risk.

However, alumni and local leaders responded with something inventive: an elite high school baseball program offering free training, lodging and meals to attract students from across the country. Within three seasons the team had reached the last 16 of a national championship. Families began to move in, new businesses opened and the population ticked up for the first time in a decade.

But it’s not just baseball bringing this town back to life. On the hillside above the town, Almonty is reviving the mine that originally made Sangdong prosperous. As the Korea Times notes, the Sangdong tungsten deposit is being brought back into production and paired with a new tungsten oxide plant and a planned molybdenum project beneath it. The way this complex has been designed and financed offers a practical template for how allied economies can rebuild strategic raw material supply after years of dependence on a single dominant producer.

Why tungsten in a remote valley matters

Tungsten is not a familiar name to most consumers, but it is embedded in the machinery of modern industry. Tungsten carbide is used in cutting and drilling tools that shape aerospace components, tungsten-bearing alloys appear in armor and munitions – and interconnects based on tungsten are used in semiconductors. Analysts at SFA Oxford note that tungsten also has growing roles in renewable energy and emerging technologies.
Supply is concentrated. China accounts for most mine production and much of the processing and has long acted as the price-maker. The United States has had no domestic tungsten production since 2015, even though tungsten appears on its strategic metals lists, and recent policy proposals would exclude Chinese, Russian and North Korean tungsten from defense procurement from 2027.

Sangdong once sat on the other side of that trade. Its output financed part of South Korea’s post-war recovery until cheap Chinese imports undercut the economics. The ore remained in the ground, but the skills and infrastructure around it dispersed. Reopening it today is therefore not simply a restart but an attempt to rebuild a strategic asset to modern standards.

Re-engineering a mid-century mine

What makes the project worth the effort is the quality and scale of the resource.

“Sangdong stands out for its grade, size and regularity of the deposit,” says Nuno Alves, Almonty’s Director of Mine Development. “The most remarkable aspect is undoubtedly its grade, which will support strong profit margins and allow us to execute operations effectively.” He adds that the historic operator, Korean Tungsten Co, left meticulous records and tried multiple mining methods over the life of the mine. “In cases of uncertainty, a good starting point is to examine how the previous operators approached the challenge.”

Independent analysis backs that view. The Korea Times describes Sangdong as one of the highest-grade tungsten deposits in the world, with an average grade of about 0.45 per cent WO₃, roughly three times that of many other operations.

The new operation bears little resemblance to the mine that closed three decades ago. Underground development has been driven out on two main horizons that encircle the orebody.

“We are at a key turning point, moving from construction into operation,” says Seung Min Byun, Operations Superintendent at Almonty Korea Tungsten Corporation. “All main underground development for production is finished, and both ventilation and drainage systems are working well.” On the surface, he adds, the processing plant is almost mechanically complete and dry commissioning is due to begin shortly.

The plant will produce concentrate at about 65 per cent WO₃, with test work expected to lift recovery into the mid-80s, a significant improvement on historical performance.

“Some parts [of the old workings] were in good shape but others needed reinforcement,” Byun says. “We used digital mapping to model deformation and set up a real-time monitoring system to track air quality and ground movement.”
Digital tools now underpin planning. “Most of the technicians are comfortable with digital modeling, and day-to-day work in geology and mine planning relies heavily on it,” says Alves. Once fully ramped up, Sangdong is expected to process around 640,000 tonnes of ore a year in its first phase and 1.2 million tonnes in a second. “This will position Almonty as one of the big non-Chinese tungsten suppliers in the world,” says Byun. “Our goal is to contribute to the diversification and stability of global supply chains across key industries such as semiconductors, defense and renewable energy.”

Financing for resilience rather than speculation

Engineering alone does not make a project bankable. For years, tungsten developments struggled to attract institutional capital; prices were volatile and often based on private assessments, and many mines turned to high-cost structures that skimmed future output.
Lewis Black, Almonty’s President and CEO, wanted a different approach. He knew his team had the skills to mine and process tungsten that many others lacked.

“Every tungsten project I’ve seen over the last 10 or more years that wasn’t owned by us has failed,” he says. “They all had smart money backing them, but they all bled out.”

Black set out to make Sangdong financially invulnerable to the price manipulation by China that had forced the mine to close three decades ago. “I was determined to do something that had never been done before in tungsten or really in critical metals,” he says. “To bring in a tier one project finance lender that had never financed a tungsten mine, and secure a serious AAA-rated offtaker who would give me a hard floor, no cap on the upside.”

That hard floor on price is central to the project’s resilience. “If China crashes the price, I still survive,” he says. “I can meet all my obligations… It means I don’t have to think about China anymore.”

With Sangdong “the biggest [tungsten mine] that exists outside of China”, Black says that such a structure reduces the incentive for the kind of price war that has undermined producers in the past. It also signals a major shift away from “lowest price at any price” to instead valuing secure supply from a transparent source. German development bank KfW has committed a substantial loan and Almonty will pay for the tungsten oxide plant with $90mn raised with a Nasdaq uplisting.

Community and the wider template

Sangdong’s revival also illustrates how a strategic mine can support a broader regeneration effort. Alves says environmental and social considerations “are not optional – things are well done or not done at all”, pointing to extensive water treatment and backfilling in both historical and current plans. Air, water, noise and vibration are monitored through automated systems and that performance is shared with the community in regular reports and meetings.

Unlike in some mining regions, local sentiment is broadly supportive.

“People in Sangdong grew up hearing stories about the mine at every dinner after their fathers returned from work,” says Alves. “Unlike other places where communities oppose mining, in Sangdong the people actively want the mine to operate. This is a rare blessing.”

Black has watched the town change over the past decade. When he first visited, Sangdong looked abandoned and forgotten.

“Now the residents have increased to close to 1,200. People are painting their houses, they are opening restaurants. You’re seeing the life come back into a beautiful part of the country.” Supporting the high school, including its baseball program, is part of that, he adds, because Almonty is an integral part of the town’s future: “The mine is certain to be producing for decades and could very well be here for a century,” says Black.

For policymakers, the lesson is that strategic minerals sovereignty is built project by project. Sangdong shows that a mothballed asset can be brought back into service when geology, engineering, finance and community support are aligned, and that long-term offtakes with price floors can attract mainstream lenders without permanent subsidies.

Towns like Sangdong are rarely at the center of geopolitical debate. Yet decisions taken in places like this – about how to finance a mine, how to manage its risks and how to share its benefits – will help determine whether allied economies can rebuild resilient supply chains for the metals they need.