Tungsten West has signed an eight year supply and offtake agreement with US tungsten processor Elmet Technologies, giving material from the Hemerdon mine in Devon a long term route into US and UK manufacturing supply chains.
The agreement covers 1,000 tonnes a year of contained tungsten trioxide, or WO₃, from Hemerdon. Tungsten West said the contract has an indicative nominal value of more than £1.4 billion at current commodity prices and exchange rates, although actual revenue will depend on tungsten pricing, currency, specifications and delivered volumes.
The structure also gives Tungsten West the option to ask Elmet to use commercially reasonable endeavours to process up to a further 500 tonnes a year of contained WO₃ for UK government strategic requirements and domestic industry. Commercial and delivery terms for that additional material would still have to be agreed.
The offtake follows the UK National Wealth Fund’s commitment of up to £71 million to support the Hemerdon restart. That financing package also gave the UK government an exclusive negotiation period over the right to procure up to 50% of planned tungsten production, placing the mine more directly inside UK critical minerals policy.
Elmet is building a vertically integrated tungsten supply chain in the United States and allied markets. The company has received a committed US$450 million investment from the US Department of War and has separately secured a Defense Logistics Agency arrangement that could support up to US$2 billion of tungsten material purchases for the US National Defense Stockpile.
Jeffery Court, chief executive officer of Tungsten West, said: “This is a landmark commercial agreement for Tungsten West and represents a major step in establishing Hemerdon as a strategically important source of tungsten for the Western world.”
A mine restart needs more than processing equipment and financing. It also needs customers able to absorb concentrate over several years, agreed specifications and a pricing mechanism capable of operating through volatile commodity markets. The Elmet agreement gives Hemerdon a named industrial route to market while preserving room for additional material to be directed towards UK requirements.
Tungsten is used where heat resistance, hardness, density and wear performance are difficult to replace, including tooling, aerospace, defence, electronics and specialist industrial components. Supply is concentrated internationally, leaving manufacturers exposed to policy changes, export restrictions and price movements far upstream from their own production lines.
Hemerdon is a brownfield restart rather than a new mine developed from scratch. Tungsten West acquired the operation after previous owner Wolf Minerals ceased production in 2018 and has since revised the process design, carried out capital works and returned parts of the site to operation. Major crushing, processing, power and access infrastructure is already present, but sustained output still depends on commissioning and ramp up.
The company is targeting steady state production during the second half of 2027. That timetable places the offtake ahead of full output, giving both parties time to align concentrate specifications, logistics, processing capacity and downstream requirements as the mine moves through commissioning.
Elmet gains a contracted source of feedstock for an expanding US tungsten refining and manufacturing business. Tungsten West, meanwhile, reduces one of the commercial risks attached to a mine restart by connecting planned output to a processor serving defence, industrial, semiconductor, medical and energy customers.
The additional 500 tonne provision separates normal contracted supply from potential UK strategic demand. Rather than committing the full mine to one government procurement route, the agreement leaves a commercial base contract in place while allowing extra processing capacity to be directed towards UK needs if requested and agreed.
That flexibility could become more valuable if Western governments continue trying to rebuild domestic and allied processing capability. Mining alone does not create a secure supply chain: concentrate still has to be converted into usable powders, alloys, components and finished products, and each processing stage can become a bottleneck when capacity is concentrated in a small number of countries.
Pricing also remains an important variable. The £1.4 billion headline is an indicative nominal figure rather than fixed contracted revenue, so movements in tungsten prices and exchange rates will affect the value realised over the eight year term. Production volumes and product quality will matter just as much, particularly during the early stages of the restart.
Hemerdon now has three linked tests ahead of it: completing the operational ramp up, meeting the specifications and delivery volumes required under the Elmet agreement, and proving that UK backed mine capacity can connect reliably into downstream Western manufacturing. The contract gives the project a clearer commercial pathway, but the decisive milestones remain physical production and sustained delivery.
