Drones Are Now Mapping the Tungsten Ground America Walked Away From

VANCOUVER, BC, Sept. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- American News Group News Commentary - Tungsten is the hardest working metal almost nobody talks about. It goes into armour, munitions, drill bits and the cutting tools that machine everything else, and there is no practical substitute for most of what it does. The Business Research Company values the global tungsten market at roughly US$6.66 billion in 2026 and projects approximately US$9.62 billion by 2030, a compound annual growth rate of about 9.6%. What makes the number matter now is a date. United States defense procurement rules begin excluding Chinese tungsten in 2027, and the American ground meant to replace it was abandoned decades ago on price rather than geology. Much of it has never been surveyed with anything more precise than coarse regional government data. That is starting to change, and it is starting from the air.

Active Companies from around the markets with current developments this week include: Western Star Resources Inc. (CSE: WSR) (OTC: WSRIF) (FRA: 4K2), Almonty Industries Inc. (NASDAQ: ALM), MP Materials Corp. (NYSE: MP), and USA Rare Earth, Inc. (NASDAQ: USAR).

The repricing already happened. Tungsten rose more than 160% during 2025 on the combination of Chinese export controls and rising defense demand, with prices continuing to climb into 2026. Tungsten now sits near the top of every national critical minerals list, including those of the United States and Canada, on the strength of its properties, its concentration of supply, and the fact that it cannot be swapped out of most of its applications.

What has not happened is the supply response. The United States has no meaningful primary tungsten production. It once did. American tungsten districts in Nevada, California, Idaho and New Mexico operated through the middle of the last century and were shut down not because the metal ran out but because Chinese producers made them uneconomic. The ore bodies were left in the ground, the workings were abandoned, and the exploration data stopped where the technology of the day stopped.

That distinction matters more than it first appears. A district abandoned on geology is a dead end. A district abandoned on price is an inventory of known mineralization that nobody has re-examined with anything modern. Most of the historical American tungsten ground has never been flown with high-resolution geophysics, never had a three-dimensional inversion run over it, and never been drilled with the benefit of either.

So the practical bottleneck between now and 2027 is not appetite, and increasingly it is not capital. Washington has committed billions to domestic critical minerals, including direct equity participation in producers. The bottleneck is that you cannot permit or drill a target you have not defined, and defining targets under cover requires flying the ground first. Everything downstream of that, the drill permits, the resource work, the mine plan, waits on a map.

Western Star Resources Inc. (CSE: WSR) (OTC: WSRIF) (FRA: 4K2) Mobilises High-Resolution Drone Magnetic Survey at the Eagle Point Tungsten Project, New Mexico

- Property-wide, high-resolution UAV magnetic survey commenced at the 100%-owned Eagle Point project in Hidalgo County, New Mexico.

- Survey flown at 25 to 50 metre line spacing to define the limestone-intrusive contact and the magnetite-bearing tactite bodies that host scheelite mineralization, including beneath cover.

- Designed to extend the eight skarn bodies known from historical workings along strike.

- Same methodology and processing workflow that produced the district-scale three-dimensional inversion at the Company's Rowland and White Star properties in Nevada.

- Data acquisition expected to take approximately three weeks, with processed products and interpretation to follow, feeding target selection ahead of a maiden drill program and the drill-permitting process.

Western Star Resources Inc. (CSE: WSR) (OTC: WSRIF) (FRA: 4K2) has mobilised a geophysical field crew to its wholly owned Eagle Point tungsten project in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, to complete a high-resolution unmanned aerial vehicle magnetic survey across the property.

The technical objective is specific. Scheelite at Eagle Point sits in magnetite-bearing tactite bodies formed where an intrusive body met limestone. Magnetite is magnetic; limestone and granite are not. A magnetic survey flown tightly enough therefore traces the contact itself, and the tactite bodies along it, including where they continue underneath cover that no amount of surface mapping can see through. Eight skarn bodies are already known from historical workings. The survey is designed to follow them along strike and to find the ones nobody dug.

Line spacing of 25 to 50 metres is the detail worth noting. The Company states that the only existing geophysical coverage over the area is coarse-resolution, widely spaced regional government data. Moving from that to a purpose-flown survey at this spacing is the difference between knowing a contact exists somewhere in a valley and knowing where it runs, how it is shaped, and where along it to put a drill.

"Given the promising results obtained from the drone magnetic surveys at Rowland and Whitestar, we are moving forward with this strategy at Eagle Point," said Blake Morgan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Western Star. "The only existing geophysics covering the area is coarse-resolution, widely spaced regional government data. By utilizing the drone, we expect to map out the prospective limestone-granite contact in much greater detail. With the ongoing Eagle Point exploration program exceeding expectations so far, we wanted to immediately add that next layer before our maiden drill program in 2026. We also expect assays back from our second-phase exploration program at Rowland and Whitestar, alongside an update on the ongoing Eagle Point program."

The method is not experimental for this company. The same survey design and processing workflow delivered a district-scale three-dimensional inversion across its Rowland and White Star properties in Nevada, and Eagle Point is the third property to receive it. Data acquisition is expected to take about three weeks, after which processed products and interpretation follow, and results are to be integrated with planned geological mapping and sampling to prioritise drill targets and support drill permitting.

Western Star is advancing a portfolio of past-producing tungsten assets across Nevada and New Mexico, with additional exploration exposure through its Western Star property in British Columbia. The Company has also flagged two further near-term items: assays from the second-phase exploration program at Rowland and White Star, and an update on the ongoing Eagle Point program. Filings are available on SEDAR+.

There are several risks associated with the Company's plans. Western Star is an exploration-stage company with no mineral resource or mineral reserve defined at Eagle Point, no production and no revenue. A magnetic survey maps physical properties of rock; it does not measure tungsten, and a magnetic anomaly is not mineralization. Historical workings and historical production at the property describe past activity and are not indicative of what may be found or recovered today. There is no assurance that the survey will define drill targets, that drill permits will be obtained, that drilling will occur on the timeline indicated, or that any drilling will result in the discovery or definition of a mineral resource. The maiden drill program referenced is a stated plan rather than a commitment. Exploration is capital intensive and may require financing that has not been secured, which could dilute existing holders. Tungsten prices have risen sharply and commodity prices can fall as quickly as they rise.

CONTINUED... Read this and more news for Western Star Resources Inc. (CSE: WSR) at: https://americannewsgroup.com/pages/western-star/

In other industry developments and happenings in the market this week include:

Almonty Industries Inc. (Nasdaq: ALM) is the clearest picture of what the finished version of this trade looks like. The company describes itself as a leading supplier of conflict-free tungsten, with its flagship Sangdong mine in South Korea, the Panasqueira mine in Portugal, and additional projects in Spain and the United States. Sangdong moved from construction to active mining in December 2025 and was formally commissioned in March 2026.

In a shareholder letter issued January 20, 2026, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lewis Black set out the strategy: a fully integrated Western tungsten platform spanning North America, Europe and Asia intended to supply at least 40% of all non-China tungsten. The letter also noted that the combination of Chinese export controls and rising demand pushed tungsten prices up more than 160% during 2025. First quarter 2026 revenue was CA$25.4 million, an increase of 221% year over year.

Almonty has also relocated its corporate headquarters to Dillon, Montana, closer to United States defense and industrial partners and to its Gentung tungsten project, and raised US$700 million in convertible notes in June 2026. It is a producer with binding offtake arrangements and a balance sheet, which is a different animal from an exploration company. It is included here because it demonstrates that the Western tungsten thesis is being financed rather than merely discussed.

MP Materials Corp. (NYSE: MP) is the reference case for what happens when Washington decides a critical mineral matters. America's only fully integrated rare earth producer, spanning mining and processing at Mountain Pass in California through to magnet manufacturing, MP became the subject of a multibillion-dollar United States Department of Defense investment, an unusually direct form of state participation in a listed producer.

In second quarter 2026 results, the company reported revenue of US$108.5 million and adjusted EBITDA of US$28.5 million, with revenue up 89% year over year. Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James Litinsky pointed to ramping NdPr production and sales volumes and to a long-term agreement to supply gadolinium to a new United States aerospace and defense customer, expanding the company's heavy rare earth portfolio.

The relevance to tungsten is the template rather than the metal. Rare earths went from an obscure supply-chain footnote to a line item with federal capital behind it in the space of a few years, on the same logic now being applied to tungsten and antimony: concentrated Chinese supply, defense dependency, and no quick domestic substitute.

USA Rare Earth, Inc. (Nasdaq: USAR) is at an earlier point on that same path, building an integrated rare earth, critical minerals and advanced materials business around the Round Top project in Texas and magnet manufacturing at Stillwater, Oklahoma. In second quarter 2026 results announced August 10, 2026, Chief Executive Officer Barbara Humpton described a quarter defined by milestones bringing the company's integrated value chain to life.

Those milestones included an intent to acquire Serra Verde, described as the only scaled producer of all four magnetic rare earths outside Asia, definitive documentation for a funding package with the United States Department of Commerce, an intended investment in Carester, and the selection of Blacksburg, South Carolina for a second American metal-making and magnet facility. The company is targeting completion of a Round Top definitive feasibility study in the fourth quarter of 2026, for publication in the first quarter of 2027, and 600 tonnes per annum of run-rate magnet capacity at Stillwater by the end of 2026.

USA Rare Earth is a useful marker of how quickly a critical minerals developer can move from concept to federal funding documentation when the policy environment is behind it, and equally of how much still has to be built before any of it produces revenue.

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