Almonty's Sangdong Hits 50% Grade While a Half-Speed Filter Press Sets the Pace
Published on 11/12/2026 at 17:11 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Almonty's pitch to the West rests on a simple promise: tungsten that doesn't come from China. The harder question, and the one that actually moves the stock, is whether the company's Sangdong mine can turn that promise into steady, reliable output. Sunday's update from CEO Lewis Black offered progress on both fronts — and a reminder of how much still depends on the plant floor.
The headline number is the grade of finished material, which now sits close to 50%, up from the 40% Black cited in his previous newsletter. That is a genuine operational step forward. But the same update disclosed that a filter press has been running at 40 tonnes per hour against a design capacity of 80 tonnes per hour. Almonty has responded by buying a replacement press, a direct answer to a bottleneck that Black himself flagged.
Read together, the two data points tell a more nuanced story than the grade alone. Higher-quality material only counts for Almonty if the plant can process it at the required rate. Quality and throughput belong in the same conversation, and anyone watching the grade while ignoring the capacity question is looking at half the picture. The replacement press is the next operational test: whether it closes the gap will matter more than the announcement itself.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Almonty?
The ramp-up at Sangdong has already shown both the promise and the friction of a mine coming online. Operations went to round-the-clock in early November. Ten hours in, a technical fault forced a halt; two hours later the plant was running again and commissioning continued. The quick restart says something about the company's ability to react to disruptions — provided a steadier operation grows out of it. It also raises the stakes on every individual processing step, since the value of any additional supply source depends on the plant handling material reliably.
That reliability question has an industrial audience. In an interview in late October, Tungco CEO Cliff Nance said Sangdong's production could help the United States reduce its dependence on Chinese tungsten. According to media reports, he was open to partnerships with Korean companies, Almonty among them, and described the mine as a possible partner for Tungco's recycling activities. The interest is a credible argument for Almonty only if it turns into working cooperation; for a recycler, an extra source of supply has obvious appeal, and Nance's remarks give the idea a concrete industrial anchor. What matters for investors is the link between potential buyer interest and production that can actually be delivered — not the broader hope of a reshuffled raw-materials map.
There is a policy thread as well. Montana opted into the federal FAST-41 permitting process on 2 November, and Almonty said it was present at the signing in Philipsburg, a relevant development for its Gentung project in the state. The agreement could coordinate state and federal permitting reviews, though statutory requirements and the necessary approvals remain in place. Investors should treat it as a framework whose value depends on how the project advances within it. At Sangdong, by contrast, the work sits squarely inside the plant.
Weighing it all up, the investment case comes down to a plain question: how does Almonty convert its projects into functioning Western tungsten supply chains? The near-50% grade is a positive marker. The replacement filter press is the next proving ground, assuming it fixes the bottleneck described in the same update. The stock's reaction was swift — a daily move of -6.4% — but the yardstick for judging what comes next should be the pairing of product quality with processing reliability, the point where Sangdong's strategic promise either holds up or doesn't.
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