Welcome back to CMM Capital newsletter,

This edition leads with tungsten: why China's export ban created a window, why Mongolia is better positioned than most realize, and why the processing gap is the only thing standing between that positioning and real investment returns. We also have the official recap of the Mongolia Investment Forum: Shanghai 2026 inside.

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🟣 Mongolia's Tungsten: The Processing Gap Investors Should Know

China controls over 80% of the world's tungsten supply. On February 4, 2025, Beijing made that number matter. Export controls on tungsten, covering not just raw ore but ammonium paratungstate (APT), the refined intermediate that manufacturers actually buy, sent buyers across the United States, Europe, South Korea, and Japan scrambling. Non-Chinese tungsten did not merely become valuable. It became strategic.

Why Tungsten, Why Now

Tungsten sits at the intersection of every industry that currently defines geopolitical competition. Militaries depend on it for armor-piercing munitions and missile components, and there is no substitute. On the commercial side, every electric vehicle contains roughly 2,000 semiconductors, and tungsten wiring runs through all of them. Defense budgets are rising. EV production is scaling. Demand is climbing from both directions at once, and the world's dominant supplier has just restricted access.

Markets responded before policy did. APT prices broke records within weeks of Beijing's announcement, repricing non-Chinese tungsten as a strategic asset overnight. What followed was more deliberate but no less significant: the United States, South Korea, Germany, and Japan each began directing capital toward alternative supply chains. The political will to fund non-Chinese tungsten is now at a historic high.

Mongolia Has What the World Needs

Mongolia is not a marginal player. The USGS recognizes its tungsten reserve at 4,300 metric tons, with producing operations already running at Erdenetiin-Ovoo and the Khovd River Mine. A June 2025 peer-reviewed study in Minerals, using KIGAM data, confirmed Mongolian ores fall within the upper range of the global grade band and identified a viable renewable energy pathway for domestic processing.