AMERMIN, an Austin-based recycler and refiner of critical minerals, is renewing its call for federal export licensing on mill-ready tungsten scrap, warning in a July 29 news release that high-value material is leaving the country for overseas remanufacturing even as tungsten prices sit near record highs.
Tungsten carbide is essential to several of Texas’ largest industries, including energy, semiconductors, aerospace and defense, the company said. AMERMIN said tungsten now trades at roughly nine times its early-2025 level, a spike it attributed to Chinese export controls and surging global demand. Independent reporting supports the broader trend: MINING.com reported that tungsten prices broke records in 2026 after China — which supplies more than three-quarters of the world’s tungsten — tightened exports following the addition of several tungsten products to its export-control list in February 2025.
The price pressure lands hard in the oil patch. AMERMIN said polycrystalline diamond compact drill bits that historically cost between $20,000 and $100,000 now carry an additional $3,000 to $25,000, an increase the company said works through production economics statewide and ultimately reaches prices at the pump. Tungsten carbide is a core material in the matrix-body bits favored for the hard, abrasive formations of the Permian Basin, where Oil & Gas Journal has documented the industry’s shift toward PDC bits to speed drilling and cut costs.
“Texas produces more oil and natural gas than most countries, and in the complex formations of the Permian Basin, tungsten carbide rules the day,” said Ryan McAdams, founder and CEO of AMERMIN, in the release. “Right now, the U.S. is letting mill-ready scrap walk out the door and into the supply chains of the same countries restricting what they sell us. That is a fixable problem, and Texas is the right place to solve it.”
AMERMIN said more than 80% of the critical minerals consumed in the United States are sourced from China, leaving manufacturers exposed to trade disputes and sharp price swings. Federal data underscores the dependence: the U.S. Geological Survey’s 2025 List of Critical Minerals found the country was 100% net import reliant for 13 mineral commodities and more than 50% reliant for another 20. Tungsten is among the most exposed — the U.S. has no active large-scale tungsten mine, according to Fastmarkets, and a U.S. House select committee has pressed to rebuild a domestic tungsten supply chain.
The company argues that domestic recycling is among the fastest ways to blunt that reliance, and that tungsten is especially well suited because scrap retains high tungsten content and can be reprocessed with far less energy and capital than mining new ore. “The countries that control critical minerals will shape the next century of global industry,” McAdams said. “We can either build that capacity here or keep renting it from governments that do not share our interests.”
AMERMIN said it is expanding its campus in Briggs, north of Austin, in phases with support from a nearly $12 million U.S. Department of Energy grant, and projects that tungsten carbide output at full build-out could supply an estimated 18% of annual U.S. consumption. Trade and local outlets reported the award at $11.5 million from the DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management; Recycling Today reported the funding is expected to boost the company’s tungsten carbide output by 300%, while the Daily Tribune reported the roughly 80-acre Central Texas campus was slated for completion in 2026.