U.S. Tungsten Supply Chain Tightens As A Nevada Past-Producer Mobilizes Drone Geophysics And Property-Wide Soil Geochemistry Toward Drill-Ready Targets

VANCOUVER, BC, May 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Western tungsten supply problem has reached the operational tooling stage. APT Rotterdam tungsten prices traded at approximately US$3,185 per metric tonne unit in early May 2026 — a roughly 900% increase over the past twelve months — driven by Chinese export licensing controls, the looming January 1, 2027 DFARS 252.225-7052 procurement cliff on Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean-origin tungsten products across the U.S. defense supply chain, and the Canadian Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit (CMETC) expansion that now actively subsidizes tungsten exploration under Bill C-15 (Royal Assent March 26, 2026).

Inside that landscape, Western Star Resources Inc. (CSE: WSR) (OTC: WSRIF) (FRA: 4K2), Almonty Industries Inc. (TSX: AII) (OTCQX: ALMTF), Guardian Metal Resources PLC (AIM: GMET) (OTCQX: GMTLF), EQ Resources Limited (ASX: EQR) (OTCPK: EQRMF), and Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE American: UUUU) (TSX: EFR) collectively span the spectrum of Western-aligned tungsten and critical-mineral exposure.

Western Star Resources Inc. (CSE: WSR) (OTC: WSRIF) (FRA: 4K2) on May 21, 2026 announced that its technical team has mobilized to the Company's Rowland Tungsten Property in Elko County, Nevada, to commence the first phase of its 2026 field exploration program. The initial program includes a high-resolution drone magnetic survey, systematic prospecting, sampling of historical waste dumps and workings, and a property-wide soil geochemistry campaign — designed to refine the Company's understanding of the prospective tungsten-bearing skarn horizons. The objective: generate drill-ready targets during the 2026 field season.

Blake Morgan, CEO and President of Western Star, framed the program as the first modern exploration program ever conducted on the past-producing Rowland tungsten system. The property has documented historical production but has not previously been evaluated using modern drone geophysics and systematic property-wide geochemistry. Mineralization at Rowland is hosted in skarn zones up to 100 feet wide, developed along intrusive contacts between Cretaceous-aged quartz monzonite stock and a host sequence of limestones, shales, and quartzites — with scheelite as the primary tungsten mineral. Drone geophysical results are expected in the coming weeks, with soil samples submitted for certified laboratory analysis.

The geological foundation under Rowland is substantial. Historical production figures — based on previous records and not yet independently verified by the Company — include 4.5 tons at 3.38% WO₃ shipped in 1943 and approximately 1,000 tons at 0.5–1.0% WO₃ produced between 1954 and 1956. These represent the documented past-producing footprint that the modern 2026 program is designed to convert into structurally controlled, geochemically validated drill targets. Western Star expects to integrate the drone geophysical results, soil geochemistry, and historical production data into priority drill target generation, with drill permitting also progressing in parallel.

The macro environment under the program is unusually supportive. The January 1, 2027 DFARS 252.225-7052 procurement cliff — which codifies under 10 U.S.C. §4872, NDAA Section 844 (FY2021), and Section 854 (FY2024) — extends prohibitions across the entire defense supply chain from mining through finished tungsten metal powders, tungsten heavy alloys, samarium-cobalt magnets, NdFeB magnets, and tantalum metals/alloys. The Canadian CMETC framework — expanded under Budget 2025 (November 4, 2025) and enacted via Bill C-15 (Royal Assent March 26, 2026) — added tungsten to the eligible critical minerals list, providing a 30% non-refundable credit on top of the 100% Canadian Exploration Expense deduction for FT share agreements through March 31, 2027.

Western Star also recently engaged Plutus Invest & Consulting GmbH — a Bremen-based investor relations and marketing firm — under a mandate fee of €200,000 through April 30, 2027, positioning the Company for European market awareness during the back half of 2026 and through Q1 2027 — precisely the window during which the U.S. federal procurement cliff takes effect and the Company's maiden drill program is generating its first modern technical results. The scientific and technical information at Rowland has been reviewed by Jasper Mowatt, MAusIMM, a Qualified Person under NI 43-101. For more company information, visit USA News Group. 

In other industry developments and happenings in the market include: 

Almonty Industries Inc. (TSX: AII) (OTCQX: ALMTF) has continued to advance commissioning and ramp-up of its Sangdong tungsten project in South Korea — one of the largest tungsten mines outside of China and the central pillar of the Western tungsten capacity build-out. Sangdong's projected mine life and production scale position Almonty as the single largest Western-aligned source of new tungsten production capacity heading into the 2026–2027 window. The Company's existing producing assets in Portugal and Spain provide additional near-term cash flow and operational platform under the tightening Western tungsten procurement environment.

Almonty's strategic positioning — operating producing tungsten assets while simultaneously commissioning the largest non-China tungsten development project in the Western world — places AII as the public-market reference for tungsten production scale-up. As the January 2027 DFARS procurement cliff approaches, the supply premium attaching to allied tungsten production capacity continues to widen — a structural feature of the broader Western critical-minerals capital cycle.

Guardian Metal Resources PLC (AIM: GMET) (OTCQX: GMTLF) has continued exploration and resource definition work at its Pilot Mountain tungsten project in Nevada — among the highest-grade tungsten development assets currently positioned in the U.S. critical-minerals procurement environment. The Company's strategic positioning within the U.S. domestic tungsten supply chain build-out has been reinforced by continuing engagement under U.S. Department of War and Defense Production Act-related programs targeting domestic tungsten capacity.

Guardian Metal's U.S.-based positioning at Pilot Mountain — combined with its dual AIM/OTCQX listing structure — provides the public-market reference for U.S. tungsten development assets at advanced exploration stage. The procurement environment is increasingly differentiating among tungsten exposures by jurisdictional alignment, project stage, and resource verification — a sequencing the broader sector has been pricing into the development-stage assets through the back half of 2025 and into 2026.

EQ Resources Limited (ASX: EQR) (OTCPK: EQRMF) has continued to advance its tungsten production operations at the Mt Carbine project in Queensland, Australia — one of the few currently producing tungsten assets in the broader Western-allied production complex. The Company has continued to leverage the structurally higher tungsten price environment through 2025 and into 2026, with operations focused on tungsten concentrate production at scale.

EQ Resources' positioning as a producing Australian tungsten operator provides the operational reference point for what tungsten production economics look like inside the current commodity price environment — and reinforces the broader structural premium attaching to Western-allied tungsten supply. Australia's positioning as a tier-one mining jurisdiction with growing U.S. defense procurement engagement continues to reinforce the strategic relevance of EQ's production base.

Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE American: UUUU) (TSX: EFR) has continued to expand its critical minerals portfolio through 2026, advancing the Vara Mada (formerly Toliara) Project in Madagascar — renamed January 8, 2026 via the updated feasibility study release. The Vara Mada Project represents one of the largest critical-mineral development assets in the Energy Fuels portfolio, providing rare earth, titanium, and other critical-mineral exposure alongside the Company's established uranium production base. The Company continues to advance its White Mesa Mill in Utah as the primary U.S. processing facility for uranium and rare earth concentrates.

Energy Fuels' integrated U.S.-based production and processing infrastructure — anchored by White Mesa Mill — positions UUUU as one of the most operationally diversified critical-minerals platforms in the public market. The Company is renegotiating Vara Mada fiscal terms with the new Randrianirina government in Madagascar following the October 2025 political transition. Across the Western critical-minerals development complex, UUUU's processing capability provides architectural reference for what a vertically integrated critical-minerals producer can look like at scale.

Across the comparable set, the message is consistent: Western tungsten supply economics have entered a new phase, U.S. and allied procurement environments are repricing in real time, and the upstream resource layer is where the asymmetry of the trade lives. Western Star Resources' May 21 field mobilization at Rowland — paired with documented historical tungsten production, the Plutus European IR mandate, and the converging DFARS and CMETC policy windows — places the Company at the modern-vintage-exploration entry point inside the broader Western tungsten capital cycle. For investors building exposure to the U.S. tungsten supply chain reshore thesis, WSR deserves a closer look.

CONTINUED… Read this and more news for Western Star Resources Inc. at: https://usanewsgroup.com/wsr-landing

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Article Sources:

• https://www.juniorminingnetwork.com/junior-miner-news/press-releases/3243-cse/wsr/203835-western-star-resources-mobilizes-field-team-to-rowland-tungsten-property-and-launches-drone-geophysics-and-property-wide-geochemical-program.html
• https://almonty.com/news/
• https://guardianmetalresources.com/news/

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