Guardian bets on Nevada tungsten revival

Guardian Metal Resources (LSE-A: GMET) is betting two tungsten projects in Nevada can help to revive United States mined supply of the critical metal as China tightens exports and Washington scrambles for alternative sources.Helped by a $6.2 million award from the US Department of Defense under the Defense Production Act Title III program, Guardian is carrying out a pre-feasibility study at its Pilot Mountain project that’s slated for completion in the first half next year.Pilot Mountain, located about 270 km southeast of state capital Carson City, hosts a historical resource. The past-producing Tempiute mine comes with a standing mill building, 3,000-kilowatt substation and six stockpiles that Guardian aims to reprocess for early cash flow.“We took a contrarian view five years ago that the world wouldn’t always be comfortable relying on China for such a key defence metal,” CEO Oliver Friesen said in an interview. “For years, nobody paid much attention. That has changed dramatically in the last six months.”Demand for tungsten is climbing globally, driven by munitions, industrial tooling and new technologies such as nuclear fusion, while global supply hovers around 115,000 tonnes a year, according to the executive.The US has not mined tungsten domestically in nearly a decade and now depends entirely on imports and recycling. This has spurred efforts to secure new supply in Nevada and north of the border – both at Fireweed Metals’ (TSXV: FWZ) Mactung deposit in Yukon and the Northwest Territories, and at Northcliff Resources’ (TSX: NCF) Sisson tungsten–molybdenum project in New Brunswick.This year Ottawa and Washington together committed about $29 million to Sisson through a mix of C$8.2 million Canadian grants and $15 million Defense Production Act funding to help move it toward construction.Chinese squeezeChina controls more than four-fifths of global tungsten mine output and, as of Feb. 4, introduced export restrictions on tungsten to the US, pushing benchmark ammonium paratungstate prices to more than double their pre-ban levels. Guardian estimates the tungsten market was worth roughly $5 billion in 2023, with defence accounting for about 10% but growing faster than other sectors as munitions production ramps up.Tungsten’s appeal is in its physics: it has the highest melting point of any metal and one of the highest densities, making it hard to substitute in armour-piercing ammunition, tank and personal armour, drill bits, turbine blades and other high-temperature components. The same properties are drawing interest from nuclear fusion developers, who see tungsten as a key material for reactor walls and divertors.Because downstream processing capacity for tungsten powder and products already exists in the US – much of it underused since the heyday of tungsten light bulbs – new mines in Nevada could plug directly into a largely intact domestic supply chain, Friesen said.Guardian shares fell about 1% to £1 on Wednesday in London, cutting their gain over the past 12 months to 217%. The company has a market capitalization of £168 million.Pilot MountainLocated in the Walker Lane mineral belt, Pilot Mountain is a skarn-type tungsten–copper–silver–zinc system centred on the Desert Scheelite and Garnet deposits. It hosts a historical 2018 resource of 12.53 million tonnes grading 0.27% tungsten trioxide with copper, silver and zinc credits, amounting to about 34,290 tonnes of metal.Guardian is betting two tungsten projects in Nevada’s Walker Lane Trend can help to revive the US-mined supply of the critical metal. Credit: Guardian Metal ResourcesDrilling in 2024 and 2025 targeted both resource growth and higher grades. Drill hole PM24-012 cut 39.3 metres grading 0.735% tungsten trioxide, 0.44% copper, 0.30% zinc and 39.7 grams silver per tonne from 66 metres downhole. Hole PM24-001 returned three mineralized intervals totalling 38.7 metres, including 27.9 metres grading 0.42% tungsten trioxide, 1.30% zinc, 0.12% copper and 23.1 grams silver per tonne.Guardian aims to complete an updated resource and mine plan next month, then finish the pre-feasibility study by mid-2026, using higher tungsten price assumptions than earlier scoping work. The project already has water rights, year-round road access and completed baseline environmental studies that found no major hurdles to development, the company said.Guardian has signed a letter of intent with US-based Global Tungsten & Powders for potential offtake from Pilot Mountain. The two companies will collaborate on western supply-chain strategy, including possible sales into any future US government stockpile.Pilot Mountain also hosts gallium values averaging about 27 grams per tonne. Guardian is working with researchers to determine whether the critical metal can be recovered as a co-product from the tungsten circuit.TempiuteIf Pilot Mountain is about scale, Tempiute is about speed, Friesen said. The past-producing Emerson mine, about 240 km north of Las Vegas and 290 km by road from Pilot Mountain, was once the largest tungsten mine in the US before closing in the 1980s when China flooded the market with cheap supply.Guardian holds an option to acquire all of Tempiute by paying $1 million on delivery of an updated compliant resource, subject to a 1.5% net smelter return royalty, half of which can be bought back. Most of the mine site sits on patented mining claims, giving the company control of both surface and mineral rights and helping shorten the permitting path.A 2003 appraisal valued Tempiute’s in-place infrastructure – the mill building, concentrate load-out bays, ore loading and conveyor foundations, 3,000-kilowatt substation, maintained access road and a water pipeline from the valley floor – at $17.9 million.Six high-grade stockpiles and a tailings facility are being assessed for early reprocessing, while drilling and metallurgical testing are under way to confirm historical data and evaluate gallium as a co-product.CatalystsGuardian, which has about $15 million in cash and access to the $6.2 million Pentagon grant, is working toward a US primary listing next year to broaden its investor base. The company is already listed in London and on the US over-the-counter market.Operations manager Marc Leduc, a mining engineer and geologist based in Denver, leads engineering across both Nevada projects. Executive chair Jason Starzecki and strategic advisor R. Michael Jones bring experience building mines and companies in North America and abroad.Still, Pilot Mountain’s resource remains historical, while Tempiute has yet to publish a modern estimate and both projects face the usual gauntlet of mine-level permitting, consultation and financing. Tungsten prices, which have more than doubled since China’s February export restrictions, have also swung violently in past cycles, including in the early 1980s when low prices shut the Emerson mine.“It’s fast, but it’s doable,” Friesen said of the goal to have at least one Nevada mine in production by 2028. “For investors looking for direct exposure to tungsten in the United States, we think we’re in the right place, focused on the right metal at the right time.”Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com