PR Newswire
Issued on behalf of Western Star Resources Inc.
With drone geophysics underway at White Star and three U.S. tungsten projects active in 2026, Western Star Resources Inc. (CSE: WSR) (OTC: WSRIF) (FRA: 4K2) is racing a defense-procurement clock that bars Chinese tungsten from key military uses on January 1, 2027.
VANCOUVER, BC, June 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — AmericanNewsGroup.com News Commentary — The United States has not produced tungsten from a domestic mine since 2015, and the clock on fixing that is no longer abstract. On January 1, 2027, a federal procurement rule begins barring tungsten mined, refined, or processed in China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from a wide band of U.S. defense applications. Tungsten is the densest, hardest-wearing metal in the arsenal — the material behind armor-piercing munitions, tank armor, and missile components — and there is no domestic mine ready to fill the gap. Against that backdrop, Western Star Resources Inc. (CSE: WSR) (OTC: WSRIF) (FRA: 4K2) just put field crews on the ground at a past-producing tungsten property in one of America’s most important historic tungsten districts.
On June 22, 2026, the Company announced that crews have mobilised to its 100% owned White Star Tungsten Project in Elko County, Nevada, to commence the first modern exploration program ever run across the property and the past-producing Mission Cross Mine workings it surrounds. The initial work is geophysics-led: a property-wide, high-resolution UAV (drone) magnetic survey paired with a systematic soil-geochemistry program. It is the kind of unglamorous, foundational fieldwork that turns a historic mine site into a set of modern, drill-ready targets — and Western Star is doing it on a property that sits directly adjacent to its own Rowland Tungsten Property in the Charleston Mining District.
A 900% Price Move Meets a Hard Deadline
To understand why a small Nevada exploration program is drawing attention, start with the price chart. The Rotterdam ammonium paratungstate (APT) benchmark — the reference intermediate product for Western tungsten buyers — has traded around the US$3,000–$3,200 per metric tonne unit range through mid-2026, after running up roughly 350% over the course of this year and on the order of 900% over the trailing twelve months from its 2025 lows. APT that changed hands below US$250/mtu as recently as 2020 has been repriced into an entirely different regime. This is not a typical industrial-metal wobble; it is a structural repricing of supply risk.
The cause is concentration. China controls roughly 80% of global tungsten mine supply and dominates the downstream chain that converts ore into APT, powder, and carbide. Beijing tightened export licensing on tungsten beginning in 2023, and the squeeze intensified through 2025: exports of key processed tungsten products fell sharply, and in December 2025 China confirmed that only 15 companies would be authorized to export tungsten in 2026–27, handing the state direct control over volume, timing, and destination. China’s own mined output is estimated to have fallen around 10% year-over-year in 2025 as aging mines and declining ore grades bite. The result is a metal whose supply sits almost entirely inside an increasingly insecure chokepoint — the same story now familiar from rare earths, gallium, and antimony.
Layer the demand picture on top. Tungsten consumption is forecast to climb meaningfully through the next decade, pulled by defense, aerospace, semiconductors, and industrial carbide — and, increasingly, by the build-out of artificial-intelligence infrastructure, where tungsten compounds are used in advanced semiconductor manufacturing. Then add the procurement cliff. The January 1, 2027 prohibition gives Western prime contractors a fixed date by which they need documented, non-Chinese tungsten for defense work. For a U.S.-based project, “domestic” and “near-term” are exactly the adjectives that matter. That is the lane Western Star is trying to occupy.
Boots on the Ground at White Star
The White Star Project is located in the Charleston Mining District, adjacent to Western Star’s Rowland Tungsten Property, and was recently acquired by the Company. The 2026 program now underway centers on three core workstreams that the Company says will mirror the integrated workflow already being applied at Rowland.
First, a property-wide UAV magnetic survey, which will provide the first modern high-resolution geophysical dataset across the project. Drone-borne magnetics can map the magnetic signature of the rocks below surface quickly and cheaply, helping geologists picture the structures and intrusions that often control where tungsten-bearing skarn mineralization sits. Western Star expects to receive preliminary processed geophysical products from its contractor over the coming weeks.
Second, systematic mapping and ground-truthing of the historical mine workings — open-pit and underground workings, surface trenches, shafts, adits, and waste dumps around the past-producing Mission Cross Mine. This is the work that ties old, often incompletely documented production records to verifiable points on the modern map. Third, reconnaissance soil sampling across the broader White Star claim package, including the ground between the White Star workings and the adjoining Rowland Property. Soil samples will be submitted to a laboratory for certified assay, with results to be released once received and interpreted; rock-chip samples will follow the same certified-assay path.
The strategic logic is district consolidation. Western Star’s stated intent is to combine the White Star and Rowland datasets into a single, district-scale geological model spanning what it calls the consolidated Jarbidge–Charleston tungsten footprint. Rather than chasing one isolated target, the Company is trying to build a contiguous, modern picture across a historic tungsten district — the kind of footprint that can support a longer exploration runway if the early surveys deliver.
Blake Morgan, the CEO and President of Western Star, framed the mobilisation in the context of the Company’s broader U.S. push, stating: “Mobilising to White Star, with the Rowland program already underway and Eagle Point just acquired in New Mexico, gives Western Star three active U.S. tungsten projects on the ground in 2026. White Star sits in the same skarn setting as Rowland and similar to Rowland, largely under-explored. Running an integrated drone magnetic survey and a focused soil and rock-chip program across the White Star workings is the fastest path to defining drill targets and matching what we have already done at Rowland.”
Why a Past-Producing Nevada Mine Matters
The phrase “past-producing” carries real weight in exploration. A property that has produced before has already demonstrated that an economic mineral system exists in the ground — the geological question shifts from “is anything here?” to “how much remains, and can modern methods define it economically?” Many of America’s historic tungsten mines were shuttered decades ago when prices collapsed and cheaper Chinese supply flooded the market, long before drone magnetics, modern geochemistry, and current pricing existed. They were never explored with today’s tools at today’s prices.
Nevada is also among the most highly rated mining jurisdictions in the world for permitting clarity and infrastructure, and it is one of the historic centers of U.S. tungsten production. Western Star describes itself as an emerging junior focused on revitalizing North America’s tungsten supply, advancing its entry into the U.S. market through the acquisition of a past-producing tungsten mine in the state. The Company also holds nine non-surveyed contiguous mineral claims totalling 4,740 hectares within the Revelstoke mining division of British Columbia, located roughly 50 kilometres southeast of Revelstoke and about 10 kilometres north of the abandoned community of Camborne.
None of this guarantees a discovery. Mobilising crews and flying a magnetic survey is the beginning of an exploration program, not the end of one; assays can disappoint, and historic workings do not always translate into modern economic resources. But the sequence Western Star is running — geophysics first, then ground-truthing, then systematic sampling, then drill targeting — is the disciplined, lower-cost path that junior explorers use to decide where to point an expensive drill rig. The combined Rowland–White Star approach is an attempt to do that across a whole district at once.
The Broader Tungsten Trade: Four Names Investors Are Watching
Western Star is an early-stage explorer, and its story sits inside a much larger reshoring theme that is pulling capital toward tungsten and critical-minerals names at every stage of development. Four operators help frame the spectrum — from established producers to fellow Nevada developers — though each carries its own risk profile and none is a proxy for Western Star.
Almonty Industries Inc. (Nasdaq: ALM) is the clearest example of a Western producer riding the price move. The company completed Phase 1 commissioning at its flagship Sangdong tungsten mine in South Korea in March 2026 — a return to production after more than three decades — and relocated its corporate headquarters to Dillon, Montana to align with U.S. industrial and defense stakeholders. Almonty reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of US$25.4 million, up 221% year-over-year on record tungsten pricing and output from its Panasqueira mine in Portugal, swinging to positive adjusted EBITDA of US$6.1 million. It illustrates the operating leverage a producer gets when APT prices spike.
Guardian Metal Resources plc (NYSE American: GMTL) is arguably the closest peer by geography and strategy: a Nevada-focused tungsten developer advancing its co-flagship Pilot Mountain and Tempiute projects, the latter formerly America’s largest producing tungsten operation. Guardian completed a U.S. listing on the NYSE American in March 2026 and is finishing a pre-feasibility study at Pilot Mountain supported by a US$6.2 million U.S. Department of War Defense Production Act Title III investment in its U.S. subsidiary. It is a useful reference point for what a more advanced Nevada tungsten story looks like — and for the federal money flowing into domestic supply.
EQ Resources Limited (ASX: EQR) brings a dual-jurisdiction producer’s perspective, operating the Mt Carbine mine in Queensland, Australia and the Barruecopardo mine in Spain. The company reported record quarterly material movement in early 2026 and has committed growth capital to roughly double Mt Carbine’s throughput, explicitly positioning itself as a source of traceable, non-Chinese tungsten for Western buyers. EQ Resources shows how existing Western producers are racing to expand capacity into the same supply gap Western Star is exploring toward.
American Tungsten Corp. (TSXV: TUNG) (OTCQB: TUNGF) rounds out the set as another junior developer chasing a historic U.S. asset — the IMA Mine Project in Idaho, where the company has been drilling underground and through historical tailings and closed a roughly C$40 million bought-deal financing in March 2026 to advance the work. The company graduated from the CSE to the TSX Venture Exchange in late May 2026, where it now trades under the same “TUNG” symbol. As a fellow explorer-stage name targeting a past-producing American tungsten mine, it is the most directly comparable in development stage, and a reminder that several juniors are now competing to be first to define a modern domestic resource.
The common thread is that the market is no longer pricing tungsten as an obscure industrial metal. It is pricing it as a national-security supply-chain problem with a fixed federal deadline — and looking for the projects, at every stage, that could help solve it. Western Star’s bet is that a past-producing Nevada district, explored with modern tools at today’s prices, is one of the places that solution could come from.
What Comes Next
The near-term catalysts are concrete. Western Star expects preliminary processed UAV magnetic survey products from its contractor over the coming weeks, with soil and rock-chip assay results to follow once laboratory analysis is received and interpreted. Those early datasets will determine whether White Star produces the kind of coherent magnetic and geochemical anomalies that justify drilling — and how cleanly the property knits into the broader Rowland model. For investors tracking the tungsten reshoring theme, the question is whether the combined Jarbidge–Charleston footprint can be advanced quickly enough to matter against a 2027 clock that is already ticking.
The scientific and technical information in Western Star’s news release was reviewed and approved by independent geologist Jasper Mowatt, MIMMM and MAusIMM, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
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CONTACT
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SOURCES
[1] Western Star Resources Inc. news release, “Western Star Resources Mobilises to the Past Producing White Star Tungsten Project and Commences Drone Geophysics,” June 22, 2026.
[2] Shanghai Metals Market (SMM) and Fastmarkets tungsten / APT benchmark pricing, June 2026.
[3] The Oregon Group, “Why tungsten prices are rising so fast: inside the supply crunch,” April 2026.
[4] Almonty Industries Inc. Q1 2026 financial results (Form 6-K), May 11, 2026; Sangdong commissioning release, March 16, 2026.
[5] Guardian Metal Resources plc, Pilot Mountain PFS progress update and NYSE American listing disclosures, March–May 2026.
[6] EQ Resources Limited quarterly activities reports and Mt Carbine expansion disclosures, 2025–2026.
[7] American Tungsten Corp. IMA Mine drilling, C$40M financing (March 18, 2026), and CSE-to-TSXV listing transfer (effective May 29, 2026) disclosures.
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