War Demand Reopens Australia Tungsten Mine as China Controls Supply

战时需求推动澳大利亚钨矿重启，中国掌控全球供应 全球冲突风险上升促使西方钨矿开采复苏，但中国的供应主导地位以及最低托底价格的缺失，威胁到和平时期非对齐矿山的经济可行性。 本期节目探讨了钨的地缘政治与经济动态。作为一种关键矿物，钨对穿甲弹药、无人机、高科技工模具和 AI 基础设施至关重要。主持人 Joe Weisenthal 和 Tracy Alloway 与专栏作家 David Fickling 讨论了钨如何成为全球冲突的先行指标，并梳理了澳大利亚 Dolphin 矿长达百年的繁荣与萧条周期。对话审视了中国对全球供应约80%的支配地位、在缺乏交易所期货的情况下为西方矿山提供资金支持的财务阻碍，以及冷战后西方军事学说的转变如何导致对重工业金属的投资不足。最后，节目还探讨了现代国防储备工作、市场操纵风险以及废料回收等替代性工业适应方案。 钨矿被视作地缘政治冲突的“百年战争预测市场”，其繁荣与萧条周期与全球主要军事冲突高度吻合，如澳大利亚海豚矿（Dolphin Mine）历史上屡次因战争爆发而复产、因战后和平而关闭。 (7:00) 钨具备与黄金相当的密度和超过3000°C的超高熔点，不仅是制造穿甲弹头与导弹破片的关键国防物资，其合成的碳化钨硬质合金还支撑了全球约80%的工业切削刀具需求。 (9:00) 中国依托地质禀赋控制着全球约80%的钨供应，而西方非对齐阵营仅占约15%；因缺乏期货对冲机制且价格受供需政策影响剧烈波动，西方商业资本长期难以对独立矿山进行承保与投资。 (20:00) 乌克兰冲突粉碎了冷战后西方侧重微芯片与轻量高科技作战的军事设想，重工业消耗战的回归重新暴露了重型火炮产能及战略矿产储备的短板，促使西方探索设定保底价等矿产扶持机制。 (30:00)

Bloomberg Opinion columnist David Fickling and the Odd Lots podcast hosts argue that the tungsten market functions as a historic bellwether for war, with capital flows and mining revivals consistently preceding major armed conflicts due to the metal's irreplaceable military value and extreme Chinese supply concentration. Historical Demand Cycles as a War Predictor Fickling describes tungsten as a century-old missing prediction market for armed conflict, observing that substantial capital flows and defense supply orders routinely surge before wars officially begin. Because commercial peacetime consumption is limited, Western extraction has historically expanded only under the threat of geopolitical crisis and collapsed once peacetime conditions returned. This pattern is exemplified by the Dolphin Mine on King Island, Tasmania: opened during World War I in 1917, it closed in 1918 amid government stockpile liquidations, reopened ahead of World War II in 1938, received renewed support during the Korean War, operated through the Vietnam War, and closed in 1990 near the Cold War's conclusion before being rehabilitated today amid heightened conflict risks. Critical Physical Attributes for Defense and Tooling Tungsten's strategic indispensability stems from its unique physical profile: it matches the density of gold while maintaining a melting point above 3,000°C. In defense manufacturing, tungsten kinetic penetrators resist mushrooming on impact, allowing munitions to punch directly through heavy tank armor, while tungsten pellets generate dense shrapnel clouds in anti-personnel and anti-drone warheads. Commercially, about 80% of global output is combined with carbon to produce ultra-hard tungsten carbide for industrial tooling, mining drill bits, and automotive workshops. During World War II, Nazi Germany was forced by tungsten shortages to divert tooling-grade tungsten into munitions, degrading precision manufacturing and resulting in misaligned gear assemblies in late-war tanks. Approximately 10% of global supply supports heat-resistant turbine blades in jet engines and power plants, alongside trace applications in advanced semiconductor manufacturing. Market Concentration and Non-Standard Pricing Mechanics (20:00) The global tungsten market consumes roughly 85,000 metric tons annually, with China controlling approximately 80% of primary production due to substantial geological advantages, alongside 5% controlled by Russia and North Korea. This leaves non-aligned Western nations competing for 15% of global output, making the Dolphin Mine's targeted 2.5% global share equate to roughly one-sixth of the entire Western market. The commodity lacks transparent futures or forward curves on exchanges like the LME or COMEX, forcing developers to absorb extreme price volatility. Benchmarks are quoted in Dry Metric Ton Units (DMTU) of Ammonium Paratungstate (APT)—where one DMTU equals 7.93 kilograms of tungsten—producing metal price equivalents ranging from $300 to $3,000 per DMTU, or up to $400,000 per metric ton of pure metal. Shifting Military Doctrines and Supply Vulnerabilities (30:00) Western strategic neglect intensified after the 1991 Gulf War, when defense strategists concluded that precision microchips and digital jamming had replaced industrial attrition, diminishing the perceived need for raw metals. However, the protracted war in Ukraine has re-established the decisive role of heavy artillery stockpiles. Western mineral security faces structural financing hurdles: the Dolphin Mine required $77 million across 20 years to reopen—a sum comparable to less than eight US THAAD interceptor missiles ($10 million each). Proposals to secure Western supply chains through government-backed floor prices or reserves like 'Project Vault' face policy hazards, including corporate lobbying diverting capital into common base metals and the risk that China could flood open markets to bankrupt Western private competitors. Western efforts to de-risk tungsten supplies remain constrained by market structure. While scrap recycling offers temporary industrial resilience, establishing redundant Western mining capacity without definitive guaranteed purchase agreements or price floors leaves capital exposed to sudden Chinese market dumping, whereas uncoordinated multinational replication risks introducing persistent marginal inflation.

彭博观点专栏作家David Fickling指出，钨因其不可替代的高密度和耐高温特性，在历史上长期充当预测地缘军事冲突的先行指标，当前全球紧张局势正重新暴露出西方对中国供给垄断的高度脆弱性。 战争的百年预测指标与海岛矿山兴衰 钨展现出独特的繁荣与萧条周期：大体上在重大战争爆发前夕因军备采购激增而受到高度重视，而在和平时期则迅速被西方市场遗忘。Fickling将钨形容为一种运转了一个世纪的“战争预测市场”，军火商与贸易商在武装冲突初现苗头时便会提前锁定原料订单，驱动实体资本回流。澳大利亚塔斯马尼亚州金岛的海豚矿（Dolphin Mine）完整映射了这一规律：该矿在1917年一战期间投产，1918年因战后政府抛储倒闭；1938年二战前夕复工，后因朝鲜战争需求激增避免再次陷入困境；冷战时期的越南战争使其持续运转，最终在1990年冷战结束前后因需求暴跌与水淹而废弃超过三十年。如今随着全球地缘战争风险再度升温，该矿再次重启。 物理极致特性与从机床到穿甲弹的用途 钨之所以难以替代，在于其黄金般的极高密度以及超过3000°C的高熔点（是岩浆温度的三倍以上）。在国防领域，普通金属弹头在撞击硬质装甲时会发生形变并耗散动能，而钨制动能穿甲弹在极端高压与高温下依然保持结构形态，能直接击穿重型坦克防护装甲；在现代无人机与巡航导弹弹头中，钨制预制破片形成密集穿透网，用于大范围杀伤指挥所和电子设备。但军工并非主要消耗端，全球约80%的钨需求集中在与碳化合成的碳化钨，用于矿山钻头、机械加工和汽车切削工具。二战后期纳粹德国因钨原料匮乏，不得不削减工业母机刀具中的碳化钨用量，导致装甲车辆装配精度断崖式下降；剩余需求则分布于航空发动机、天然气涡轮叶片等高温合金，以及先进AI芯片制造中的微量沉积应用。 中国主导地位与西方矿山严峻的融资困局 (15:00) 全球钨市场总体规模极其狭小，每年消费量仅约85,000公吨，且正常和平时期的刀具多经重复修磨与回收，需求弹性较低。中国凭借天然地质禀赋与长期投入，控制着全球约80%的钨产量，俄罗斯与朝鲜合计占据约5%，非对齐的西方“自由世界”仅剩15%左右的供给基础。海豚矿若全面达产，可贡献全球总产量的2.5%，这相当于非对齐阵营供给的六分之一（16.6%）。然而，由于LME与COMEX等主流交易所缺乏针对钨的远期合约与期货曲线，开发商无法为银行提供5至10年的锁价对冲证明，导致西方商业借贷意愿极低。海豚矿在长达20年的重启推进中，依靠非传统手段勉强筹措7700万美元资本支出（约合700万澳元股权），其间设备承包商甚至被迫接受“以股权抵设备租金”的方式维持周转，而美国本土唯一的退伍军人独力手工采矿点也早在2013年前后停止运作。 军事学说演变与政府托底政策的两难困境 (30:00) 冷战结束后，1991年海湾战争的精确制导武器与信息化优势，使西方防务决策层误以为未来战争将彻底转向由芯片、雷达与电子对抗主导的快速高科技突防，从而将重工业重金属储备视为过时的陈旧资产。乌克兰战场的长期阵地战彻底粉碎了这一假想，传统大口径火炮消耗与重工业消耗战重新成为焦点。然而，面对中国可能通过调整出口配额或释放产能引致的价格波动（仲钨酸铵APT价格曾从每单位300美元剧烈震荡至3000美元），西方资本不敢轻易投入新建项目。为促成供应链去风险化，美国国防部等机构开始探讨设定保护性收购底价机制，但批评者担忧该举措会长期补贴低效矿山；而类似120亿美元规模的“Project Vault”关键矿产储备计划，也面临被游说集团扩大范围至铜、铝、炼焦煤等常见大宗品，从而稀释钨、镓、锗等核心战略元素资金池的政策风险。 供应链重复建设与替代效应带来的成本压力 (40:00) 西方试图摆脱中国供给垄断的战略努力同时催生了新的宏观经济矛盾。中国模式对战略性资源具备承受长期低回报投资的耐受力，且规避了系统性去产能导致的工业空心化；而西方各经济体如果各自斥资重复建设本土关键矿山，在缺乏最后兜底买家的情形下，极易引发未来局部的严重产能过剩，并打破原有全球化分工的效率优势，推高边际通胀。不过，历史先例表明市场在断供冲击下具有自我调节潜力：此前中国收紧对日出口时，日本汽车工业并未停摆，而是通过发展高效率废旧刀具硬质合金回收技术加以化解；此外，类似锂电池行业以磷酸铁锂替代高风险刚果（金）钴原料的案例，表明极端高昂的战略资源溢价最终也会倒逼出材料替代方案。 钨市场的脆弱性折射出西方防务供应链在去风险化过程中的两难：虽然战略储备与价格保底能阶段性刺激本土开采，但要在缺乏稳定商业回报与期货对冲的市场环境下长期维系高成本重复产能，仍面临严重的通胀摩擦与财政补贴风险。

## Background 该内容由彭博社（Bloomberg）旗下的播客节目于 2026 年 8 月 3 日发布在网络及 RSS 平台上，邀请了彭博观点专栏作家大卫·菲克林（David Fickling）深入对谈。节目围绕菲克林的最新专栏展开，将钨矿开采比喻为“存在了上百年的战争预测市场”，探讨了钨因极端物理属性在国防军工中的关键地位、澳大利亚海豚钨矿（Dolphin Mine）战时开工和平时关闭的历史轮回，以及西方在面对中国供应链主导地位时难以维持本土产能的结构性困境。 ## TL;DR 钨是一种典型的“间歇性关键商品”：平时约 80% 用于制造切削刀具和硬质合金，商业利润薄弱且缺乏期货对冲市场；但在战时，凭借堪比黄金的高密度与超过 3000°C 的超高熔点，它是穿甲弹芯和破片弹药无可替代的王牌原料。随着乌克兰战场重新展现重工业消耗战的严酷现实，加之中国收紧出口管制，仲钨酸铵（APT）价格暴涨，沉睡数十年的澳大利亚海豚矿等西方老矿被迫紧急重启。然而，相比于数万亿美元的整体防务和 AI 投资，维护这些战略矿山所需的数千万美元虽然微不足道，西方自由市场却始终因缺乏价格托底机制和畏惧潜在价格倾销而无法建立持续的资本保障，暴露了关键防务供应链的深层脆弱性。 ## Atmosphere & style 节目在机智风趣的闲聊调侃与硬核严肃的产业地缘分析之间自如切换，充满充满洞察力的叙事张力。从币圈晒“钨立方”的怪癖及 FTX 遗留在巴哈马丛林中挪不动的巨型金属块开场，主持人和嘉宾用幽默的笔触化解了复杂的矿业术语，随后迅速切入穿甲弹杀伤机制与大国博弈的硬碰硬现实。谈话中将几千万美元矿山预算与翻修白宫宴会厅预算进行荒诞对比，既展现了浓厚的财经讽刺意味，又深刻传递出对现代战争重新滑向残酷工业消耗战的清醒与忧虑。 ## Bulletin - `06:47` 钨被称为贯穿百年的“战争预测市场”，因其极高密度与超过3000度的超高熔点，在承平时期多用于碳化钨钻头，而在战时则是动能穿甲弹与集束弹药破片的绝对核心。 - `24:32` 全球钨供应链呈现极端失衡，中国控制了全球约80%的开采与供应，加之俄罗斯和朝鲜合计占5%，西方自由世界市场仅能争夺剩余15%的流通份额。 - `20:00` 全球钨年消耗量仅约8.5万吨且缺乏期货衍生品曲线，导致海外矿山缺乏银行信贷支持；而一旦中国收紧出口管制，仲钨酸铵（APT）报价即出现极端波动，折算纯金属价格逼近每吨40万美元。 - `30:00` 乌克兰战场四年消耗战以及大国潜在对抗打破了海湾战争以来的“高科技芯片制胜”神话，工业品消耗战的回归迫使西方重估重工业弹药及战略矿产的自主可控性。 ## Key takeaways - `05:40` 钨是典型的间歇性关键商品，承平时期因利润微薄和环保代价在西方被边缘化，战时则因极端战略价值成为决定战争胜负的“超级元素”。 - `06:47` 澳大利亚海豚钨矿（Dolphin Mine）的兴衰史精准契合了百年战争周期：一战开采、战后倒闭，随后历经二战、朝鲜战争、冷战关停，如今因俄乌冲突等局势升温再度抽水重启。 - `08:35` 高密度（媲美黄金）与超高熔点（超3000°C）让钨合金在以数马赫高速撞击重装甲时不软化外翻，能像针尖般直接击穿现代主战坦克，同时在大规模防空与反无人机集束弹药中形成毁灭性金属风暴。 - `10:00` 工业民用领域消耗了约80%的钨用于制造碳化钨切削工具与钻头，缺乏硬质合金刀具会导致机床加工精度暴跌，二战末期德国坦克的做工粗糙即源于钨断供。 - `17:42` 中国不仅坐拥储量最大、品位最高的天然地质红利，而且由于拥有超强工业耐受力与低财务回报容忍度，在冷战后以成本优势重塑了全球供给格局，海外矿山在商业逻辑下难以生存。 - `20:00` 钨属于高度依赖回收循环的微型市场，缺乏公开期货市场让矿企无法利用远期曲线对冲长周期资本支出，导致商业银行普遍拒绝发放项目贷款。 - `24:32` 关键矿产存在巨大的资金体量悖论：Dolphin钨矿二十年累计投资仅7700万美元（能供应西方自由市场近1/6份额），不及数枚萨德防空导弹或修缮一处官方宴会厅的开销，却长期缺乏长效战略补贴兜底。 - `27:26` 西方资本难以与中国的战略耐受力抗衡，西方投资者长期担忧中国扩大出口或结束管制引发价格雪崩，进而击垮新建的高成本海外矿山。 - `30:00` 1990年海湾战争让西方陷入“精确制导与芯片信息化彻底终结传统消耗战”的思想误区，直到乌克兰战场的长期消耗战爆发，重工业弹药产能的短板才彻底暴露。 - `32:48` 为保障供应链安全，政府必须引入3到5年的价格托底机制，但需警惕如“金库计划”（Project Vault）演变为通用大宗商品投机对冲工具的道德风险。 - `36:20` 地缘断供风险正在打破过去的勘探共识，例如此前被认为仅存在于中国南方的中重稀土离子吸附型粘土矿，目前已在巴西、马来西亚和澳大利亚等地被重新发现。 - `42:35` 多国各自为政搞供应链“去扼杀点”和战略冗余重复建设，若缺乏最终托底买家，既容易引发下一轮全球产能过剩，又会在边际上抬升全球结构性通胀。 - `44:48` 自由市场在危机下具备通过技术替代（如无钴LFP电池）和强化废料回收（如日本应对稀土管制）自愈的弹性，但仍需权衡冗余储备的综合经济代价。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### `01:41` 播客开场与失踪的“钨立方”：从币圈狂欢到硬资产隐性持有成本 节目伊始，Joe Weisenthal 略带沮丧地向 Tracy Allaway 倾诉自己今天心情低落，称自己正唱着一首伤感的“钨立方蓝调”（Tungsten Cube Blues）。回溯到 2022 年，加密货币圈（Crypto Twitter）曾掀起一阵购买实心“钨立方”（Tungsten Cube）并在社交媒体晒图的风潮，Joe 当时也跟风买了一块。他非常沉迷于钨沉甸甸的压手感，笑称自己就像喜欢重力毯一样，对这种异乎寻常的重物有一种本能的喜爱。他原本打算把这块钨立方带到录音现场当道具，却发现它在办公室工位搬迁后不翼而飞了——要么是混在杂乱的抽屉深处，要么是因为近期钨价暴涨而被人顺手牵羊。 Tracy 随之提到了已倒闭的加密交易所 FTX 与山姆·班克曼-弗里德（Sam Bankman-Fried, SBF）的荒诞轶事：在迈克尔·刘易斯（Michael Lewis）记录 SBF 的传记末尾提到，FTX 曾计划在巴哈马总部安装一个巨大的钨立方，后来公司崩塌，那个极其沉重的庞然大物被扔在丛林里的一个仓储单元中无人问津，因为实在太重了，根本没人搬得动它。Joe 由此引申出一个深刻的投资思考：许多人热衷于硬资产（Hard Assets）投资，却忽视了这类资产天然带有“负利率”属性——投资者要么必须持续支付仓储费、保险柜租金乃至聘请安保人员；如果放任不管，资产每年都会面临一定概率的物理丢失或遗忘（无论是丢失黄金、私钥还是办公桌上的金属块），这种随机损失在金融数学上本质上就是一种持续扣除的负收益率。 - 2022 年钨立方热潮：加密社群追捧其反直觉的高密度握持手感，将其作为新型身份玩具。 - FTX 巴哈马遗留物：巨大的定制钨立方被遗弃在加勒比丛林仓库中，因自重过大成为无法处置的资产。 - 硬资产的负持有成本：物理储存开销与不可逆的遗失风险构成了实物资产隐蔽的“负利率”。 --- ### `05:40` 钨的周期律：平时无人问津、战时一克难求的战略特种金属 与铜或石油等在和平时期拥有恒定工业基础需求的平稳大宗商品不同，钨（Tungsten）是一种典型的“间歇性关键商品”（Intermittent Commodity）。在承平岁月里，钨矿开采通常成本高昂、利润微薄，且伴随着巨大的环保代价；一旦国际局势缓和，除了少数耐磨切削工具或小众消费品外，常规工业需求很难支撑起高额的开采溢价，西方国家往往直接关闭本土矿山。然而，一旦地缘政治紧张升级乃至爆发全面战争，钨便立刻摇身一变成为决定胜负的“超级元素”。 随着近年来全球冲突激增，钨在现代国防工业中的不可替代性再次暴露无遗。从巡航导弹的核心配重、穿甲弹药，到自杀式无人机预制破片，钨都是关键原料；与此同时，在尖端科技与人工智能（AI）基础设施硬件建设中，高熔点、高导电耐磨的钨材料需求也开始回暖。然而全球钨的供应链极度失衡，开采与精炼产能绝大部分被特定国家（尤其是中国）牢牢把控。面对日益升温的大国博弈，西方阵营在战时关键特种金属供应上面临着严峻的断供风险。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Tungsten War Cycle accDescr: 钨在和平时期与战争威胁时期的盛衰周期流转 subgraph Peace["和平时期"] P1["商业需求平淡 / 利润微薄"] --> P2["西方矿山关闭 / 依赖低价进口"] end subgraph Crisis["危机与战时"] C1["国防订单暴增 / 弹药耗尽"] --> C2["钨价飙升 / 战略矿山重启"] end Peace -->|"地缘冲突爆发"| Crisis Crisis -->|"战争结束 / 抛售库存"| Peace ``` --- ### `06:47` 嘉宾 David Fickling 登场：钨矿是贯穿百年的“战争预测市场” 彭博观点（Bloomberg Opinion）专栏作家 David Fickling 从悉尼连线加入讨论。他深入调研了澳大利亚塔斯马尼亚外海的矿山后指出，如果要理解钨，最贴切的比喻就是将其视作一个**“已存在了一个多世纪的战争预测市场”**（a century-old prediction market for war）。在金融投机者开始对宏观风险下注之前，真正嗅觉敏锐的资本早就在钨矿领域用真金白银投票：当防务承包商察觉到大规模战争迫在眉睫时，会率先向特种金属交易商下达天量先期订单，贸易商随即向钨矿开采商注资，矿山开工与停摆的节奏精准契合了现代战争的脉搏。 Fickling 讲述了他亲自走访的澳大利亚海豚钨矿（Dolphin Mine）传奇般的百年沧桑。该矿山坐落于塔斯马尼亚海岸以北金岛（King Island）的一处狂风呼啸的海滩上，地处气候恶劣的“咆哮四十度”（Roaring Forties）风带。这座偏远矿山的开关历史宛如一部 20 世纪世界战争史的微缩胶卷： - **1917 年（第一次世界大战）**：由于协约国军备急需特种钢材，海豚矿首次破土开采；一战结束后，军火需求瞬间归零，欧洲政府抛售战时钨储备，矿山旋即破产倒闭。 - **1938 年（第二次世界大战前夕）**：战争阴云再次笼罩欧洲与亚洲，西方重启该矿以应对纳粹德国与日本的军备扩张。 - **二战后至朝鲜战争**：二战结束后矿山再度陷入危机，但随后爆发的朝鲜战争挽救了它，订单再次爆满。 - **冷战中后期**：1957 年苏联人造卫星“斯普特尼克”（Sputnik）升空，战略界对未来火箭与核战争形态产生剧烈重估，常规火炮需求动摇；但紧接着的越南战争又让矿山维持运转。 - **1990 年（冷战终结）**：随着铁幕瓦解、世界迎来“历史终结论”下的和平红利，海豚钨矿彻底关闭。矿井随后被海水淹没，荒废长达三十余年。 - **当下重启**：在被遗忘了三十年后，随着俄乌战火延烧及台海等全球地缘热点升温，海豚矿在沉寂数十年后被重新抽干积水、注资恢复开采。 --- ### `08:35` 钨的硬核物理特性：比拟黄金的密度与耐受 3000 度高温的穿甲弹之王 当被追问钨为何能成为左右战争格局的“超级金属”时，Fickling 解释了其无与伦比的物理属性。这也是为什么它既能在办公桌上迷住币圈玩家，又能在战场上毁灭钢铁装甲： 首先是其惊人的高密度（约 19.3 g/cm³），其重量与纯金几乎不相上下；其次是其物理极限级别的超高熔点——钨的熔点超过摄氏 3000 度（熔点高达 3422°C），相当于地表火山熔岩温度的三倍以上。在极高温度下，钨依然能够维持绝对坚硬的固态结构。 在现代反装甲作战中，动能穿甲弹（如尾翼稳定脱壳穿甲弹 APFSDS）依靠极高初速直接撞击主战坦克的复合装甲。普通金属在以数马赫的高速碰撞装甲板并承受剧烈摩擦生热时，会瞬间软化、熔融，撞击端会像“蘑菇”一样向四周外翻溃散，导致动能迅速被装甲吸收消散。而钨合金穿甲弹芯凭借极致的高密度与耐高温耐磨损特性，在猛烈撞击中不会软化变形，而是如同“自锐的针尖”一般，把全部极高动能集中在针尖极小的截面上，直接将厚重的坦克装甲硬生生刺穿烧穿。 ### `10:00` 钨的军工与民用杀伤力：从“金属暴雨”到切削一切的硬质合金 钨在军工领域的应用远不止重型穿甲弹。当它击穿坦克装甲时，能够直接将毁灭性动能倾泻到车体内部；而在现代战场上，钨的另一项致命用途是集束弹药（cluster munition）或分布式战斗部。这类弹药在爆炸时会向四周释放大量极其微小的钨合金弹丸，在空中形成一场无孔不入的“金属雨”，瞬间撕碎其覆盖范围内的无人机群或敌方指挥所。正因钨的密度远超普通钢材，其穿透与破坏力呈指数级上升。面对迫在眉睫的战争威胁，军工买家往往愿意为这种无与伦比的物理特性“支付任何代价”。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 钨的双重应用领域分布 accDescr: 展示钨在军工杀伤性武器与工业制造（特别是硬质合金工具）中的主要应用场景及占比。 subgraph Military["军工应用：极端密度与硬度"] M1["动能穿甲弹<br/>（直穿重装甲）"] M2["集束弹药/破片<br/>（高密钨弹丸形成'金属暴雨'）"] end subgraph Industrial["工业与民用：占比超80%的硬质合金"] I1["碳化钨切削工具<br/>（汽车机加工、采矿钻头、油气钻探）"] I2["特种耐热合金<br/>（航空喷气发动机、燃气轮机、LNG压缩机）"] I3["石化与电子微量应用<br/>（炼油催化剂约5%、高端AI芯片）"] end ``` 然而在和平时期，钨并不是什么充满科幻色彩的神秘原料，它的主体需求反而相当朴实甚至枯燥。市场上约80%的钨被制成了碳化钨（tungsten carbide）——一种将钨与碳结合的高硬度材料，专门用来制造各类钻头与切削刃具。无论是汽车维修厂加工金属的机床钻头，还是深海油井与地下矿山的重型掘进机，只要需要啃碎坚硬物质，碳化钨就是性价比最高的王牌工具。二战末期纳粹德国的遭遇便是一个绝佳例证：当时德国面临严重的钨断供，被迫将有限的钨优先供给前线军工武器，全面停止在工业机床上使用碳化钨刀具。这直接导致盟军在战争后期缴获德国坦克时发现其做工粗糙不堪——因为缺少硬质合金刀具，德军机床切削精度暴跌，坦克齿轮和机械部件严重失调，整台战车故障频出。 除了占据绝大份额的硬质合金刀具，钨还有少量小众却关键的用途： - **石化炼油催化剂**：与许多关键矿产类似，约5%的钨会被用作炼油厂某些特殊化学裂解反应的催化剂。 - **高温涡轮叶片**：航空喷气发动机以及用于为数据中心供电的燃气轮机、液化天然气（LNG）压缩机中，耐高温合金内可能含有高达10%的钨。 - **半导体先进制程**：部分人工智能（AI）高端芯片制造也会微量使用钨，但由于单颗芯片尺寸极小，其绝对原材料消耗量微乎其微。 --- ### `13:46` 海豚钨矿的“江洋大盗”投资团：红牛继承人、老矿工与七千万美元的豪赌 澳大利亚海豚钨矿（Dolphin Mine）的重组重启，汇聚了一群宛如“盗宝犯罪电影（heist movie）”里的传奇角色。其股东名册极其奇特，根本不像一家具备全球战略意义矿山该有的资方结构：这里既有欧洲饮料巨头红牛（Red Bull）背后的奥地利豪门继承人，也有深谙困境资产重组（distressed debt）的秃鹰投资人，以及抱着“最后再干一票”心态重出江湖的退休老矿工。 这家矿山奇特股东结构的背后其实各有渊源： - **中欧历史情结与红牛家族**：中欧德语区对钨有着上百年的产业执念与研究传统，总部位于奥地利的红牛家族顺理成章地入局这一金属投资。 - **煤矿退场的再投资客**：大约20年前，美国煤炭巨头皮博迪能源（Peabody Energy）收购了一座属于几名澳大利亚投资人的煤矿，这几位金主便将拿到的套现资金注入了海豚钨矿。 - **重返故地的卡特彼勒经销商**：其中一位股东是卡特彼勒（Caterpillar）设备经销商，他甚至早在1960年代就曾在这座海豚钨矿亲自打过工。 - **债转股的机械租赁商与地方政府**：塔斯马尼亚州政府为了托底当地就业而向其提供救助并持有股份；而那些出租吊车和重型采矿设备的公司，因长期被欠付工程款，最终不得不接受“债转股”成为矿山股东。 整座矿山在过去20年间几乎没有获得任何主流商业银行的贷款支持，其账面股权价值一度仅有约700万澳元。从20年前启动复产论证、完成环评与合规报告至今，总共投入的现金不过7700万美元左右——这一数额甚至“只相当于亚马逊公司四个小时的日常开支”。这些投资者在最初入场时并没有神准预测到今天迫在眉睫的战争地缘政治，他们真正的核心逻辑在于：中国垄断了全球80%的钨供应。早在2010年中日稀土摩擦时，这群人就已经敏锐意识到全球对单一关键矿产供应链的脆弱依赖，尽管当时西方社会对此漫不经心。 --- ### `17:42` 地质彩票与老矿瓶颈：和平年代为何难见中国以外的钨矿？ 在全球矿业的和平时期，中国以外的地区极少有人愿意斥资开发新钨矿，其根本原因在于残酷的地质现实——中国在这场资源竞争中独揽了“最优质的地质彩票”。采矿业向来由自然禀赋决定竞争格局：正如南非与博茨瓦纳坐拥全球最顶级的天然钻石，俄罗斯和南非统领铂族金属，澳大利亚与巴西把持最高品位铁矿石一样，全球品位最高、储量最大的钨矿床偏偏集中在中国。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 现代钨产业供给格局演变与制约因素 accDescr: 展现冷战至今全球钨供给受中国地质优势主导的历程以及和平时期的投资制约。 A["自然禀赋红利<br/>（中国矿床品位最高、储量最大）"] --> B["低成本倾销冲击<br/>（冷战后重开贸易，西方高成本矿相继关闭）"] B --> C["西方投资荒漠<br/>（和平期缺乏商业暴利，矿山依赖极少民间游资）"] C --> D["地缘与资源枯竭变局<br/>（中国老矿整顿/出口管制，西方重启防务储备思考）"] ``` 自20世纪初以来，中国就一直主导着全球钨的供应体系。历史上唯一一次格局打破，是在冷战期间西方与中国完全切断贸易往来的特殊时期；一旦地缘坚冰消融，中国的高品位、超大规模钨矿迅速以极具杀伤力的成本优势重新席卷全球，其他地区的矿企几乎没有插足的生存空间。在过去漫长的和平年代里，美国最后一座坚持运作的本土钨矿位于洛杉矶以东的山区，实际上仅靠一名越战老兵在每年夏天独自进山开采几吨矿石惨淡维持，直到2013年彻底停工。 如今局势发生剧烈逆转，中国开始对钨等战略矿产实施严格的出口管制。在西方投资者看来，地缘对抗固然是核心推手，但从产业自身生命周期来看，中国那些连续开采了上百年的超级老矿如今也面临着品位衰减、安全环境治理以及产业重组的客观压力。随着这道长期依赖的供应闸门收紧，那些曾在和平时期无利可图、全靠边缘资本勉强续命的海外矿山，突然被推回了防务供应链的历史聚光灯下。 ### `20:00` 缺乏期货曲线的微型市场与融资死局 钨在全球范围内的年消耗量仅约 8.5 万公吨，这在体量庞大且波澜壮阔的大宗商品世界里只算是一个极不起眼的狭小角落。它昂贵且主要流向机械加工车间或采矿钻头等工业场景，而且由于废旧钻头通常会被重新研磨或直接回炉，工业界对钨的消耗主要依赖回收循环，并不会出现类似于一般大宗商品的消费性需求暴增，其需求增长几乎完全受制于全球工具制造产能的扩张节奏。与原油或铜等具有成熟远期曲线的商品截然不同，钨不存在期货市场。对矿业投资者而言，这导致了一个致命的结构性缺陷——他们无法通过衍生品合约锁定未来收益或对冲成本。正如彭博专栏作者 David Fickling 指出的那样，开发一座矿山需要当下砸出巨额资本开支，而回报往往要等到五至十年后；若是铜矿，开发者可以径直前往伦敦金属交易所（LME）或纽约商品交易所（COMEX）签订五年期的远期合约，凭此拿着清晰的成本利润测算表去银行获取项目贷款。 但在钨矿行业，完全没有这种“可银行化”（bankable）的保障。正如资深投资者亚历克斯·特恩布尔（Alex Turnbull）所言，钨的价格可能跌至每干公吨度（dmtu）300 美元，也可能飙升到 3,000 美元，“300 美元或 3,000 美元都是合理价格”。原因在于中国垄断了全球约 80% 的钨供应，一旦中国切断出口，全球其余市场就必须为争夺剩下的 20% 抢破头。这意味着任何价格极端在逻辑上均能成立。而对于绝大多数生产成本偏高的中国境外钨矿企业来说，只要价格落在中位数以下，生存就成问题；由于没有任何人能预测明年甚至五年后的营收情况，商业银行根本不可能为它们批准贷款。 - 全球每年钨总消费量：仅约 85,000 公吨，属于高度依赖工业回收的微型市场。 - 缺乏期货衍生品：无法像铜、原油那样在公开交易所通过远期曲线进行套期保值。 - 市场极端波动性：中国掌控 80% 供应，导致海外自由流通量极度脆弱，价格可在 300 到 3,000 美元之间剧烈跳跃，使得传统商业信贷完全退缩。 --- ### `22:15` 仲钨酸铵（APT）定价之谜与被盗的钨立方体 当主讲人 Joe 查看彭博终端上追踪荷兰鹿特丹仓库的钨现货行情时，忍不住直呼“这张走势图看得让人想哭”——2022 年他买下那个纯钨立方体时，行情大概还在 300 美元左右，而如今报价已经冲上了 3,000 美元。不过，David Fickling 随即解释了这个外行人极易混淆的特殊计价单位：终端上显示的 3,000 美元并非每公吨单价，而是以“干公吨度”（Dry Metric Ton Unit, dmtu）计价的仲钨酸铵（APT，Ammonium Paratungstate）。APT 是钨的一种初级化学化合物，呈粉末状，便于装袋并通过集装箱跨洋运输；工业用户只需对其进行加热，使其脱去氨气转化为氧化钨，就能轻而易举地加工成碳化钨或纯钨材料。 一个干公吨度的仲钨酸铵大约仅含有 7.93 公斤纯钨。也就是说，当 APT 报价达到每干公吨度 3,000 美元时，折算成一公吨纯钨的实际价格已经逼近惊人的 40 万美元。面对如此离谱的暴涨，主持人们一边恍然大悟，一边互相打趣调侃：难怪 Joe 那个原本看似只是玩具的纯钨立方体会不翼而飞，“这下真相大白了，肯定有人知道它现在值多少钱把它偷走了”、“我真是越想越抑郁，必须把它找回来”。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 钨商品形态与计价转化链条 accDescr: 展示从钨精矿到仲钨酸铵再到纯金属的工业流向与计价单位关系 subgraph Primary["矿石初提"] A["钨原矿开采"] --> B["钨精矿"] end subgraph Trading["贸易基准形态"] B --> C["仲钨酸铵 (APT)"] C -.->|"袋装航运 / 市场报价基准"| D["以干公吨度 (dmtu) 计价"] end subgraph Processing["终端加工"] C -->|"加热脱氨"| E["氧化钨"] E --> F["碳化钨 / 金属钨<br/>(1 dmtu 约含 7.93 kg 纯钨)"] end ``` - 核心贸易基准：仲钨酸铵（APT），易于袋装海运，是钨冶炼加工的核心中介原料。 - 换算关系：1 干公吨度（dmtu）APT 约含 7.93 公斤金属钨；3,000 美元/dmtu 的报价对应每公吨纯钨市价约 400,000 美元。 --- ### `24:32` 白宫宴会厅与萨德导弹：关键矿产的“微薄数字”对比 关键矿产行业最荒诞的悖论在于，它牵动着全球地缘政治命脉，背后所涉及的实际资金规模却“小得令人不可思议”。以位于塔斯马尼亚金岛的 Dolphin 钨矿为例，过去整整二十年间，各方在此处投入的真金白银累计仅有 7,700 万美元。相比之下，西方世界眼下在人工智能（AI）领域砸下数万亿美元，甚至连翻修一座白宫宴会厅的传闻预算都能达到 8 亿至 10 亿美元，一枚使用少量钨材料的“萨德”（THAAD）防空拦截弹单价就高达 1,000 万美元。也就是说，只需修一座宴会厅的资金，就足以彻底解决困扰西方阵营多年的稀土供应链危机；但在这类战略性矿物上，资本市场长期连几千万美元都吝于付出。 在体量方面，Dolphin 矿山若能全力投产，其年产能将占到全球钨供应量的 2.5% 左右。表面上看 2.5% 微不足道，但如果将全球供给切片——中国独占 80%，俄罗斯与朝鲜合计占约 5%——西方阵营在冷战时期所谓“自由世界市场”（Free World Market）所能争夺的有效供应仅占全球的 15%。因此，这座单体矿山实际上能够贡献自由世界市场约六分之一的钨供应量。然而，即便涉及的金额如此低廉、战略权重如此显著，市场平时却几乎没有人愿意为其埋单，这种短视行为在主持人们看来，简直与当年美国政府为省小钱而执意低价变卖国家战略氦气储备的愚蠢做法如出一辙。 - 投资规模对比：二十年间 Dolphin 钨矿仅吸收 7,700 万美元投资，甚至不及建造数枚萨德导弹（每枚约 1,000 万美元）或翻修一处官方设施的预算。 - 自由世界市场份额权重：全球 80% 归中国，5% 归俄朝，西方阵营可触及的流通盘仅 15%；Dolphin 矿山的 2.5% 全球份额相当于填补了西方自由市场近 1/6 的需求空缺。 --- ### `27:26` 棋盘对决电子表格：为何西方资本难以抗衡倾销风险 造成西方民间资本对钨及稀土矿山敬而远之的核心原因，在于中国与西方在产业运营逻辑上的根本错位。中国在关键矿产领域不仅具备地质资源优势，更能容忍极低的财务回报率，将产业全局视为国家战略的一盘“大棋”，而不是西方对冲基金紧盯的短期财务电子表格。这使西方投资者始终笼罩在一种挥之不去的心理阴影之中：一旦西方投巨资新建矿山，中国随时可以通过扩大产能、低价倾销来压低全球价格，在极短时间内将成本居高不下的海外矿企整垮。 当前的真实行情生动地印证了这种脆弱性。当下钨价之所以居高不下，直接诱因是中国在去年特朗普就任前后出台了严格的钨出口管制。面对断供风险，全球消费商纷纷展开预防性囤积与投机性采购，进而推高了公开市场报价。然而，一旦地缘摩擦缓和、管制措施松动，市场上的投机性溢价将瞬间蒸发，随之而来的价格崩塌又将把刚刚起步的非中国矿山推向破产边缘。这种恶性循环甚至不是现代特有的现象——早在 1920 年第一次世界大战结束时，Dolphin 矿山的首次停产倒闭，正是因为协约国联军战后大规模抛售战时军备储备的钨，直接把战后民用市场砸穿，其戏剧性不亚于 20 世纪 90 年代末英格兰银行在金价历史低位抛售黄金的灾难性决策。令主持人们不解的是，西方庞大的军工复合体每年在承平时期也能消耗数千亿美元用于采办军火武器，但面对耗资极小却能扼住军工咽喉的关键矿产供应链，整个体制却从未建立起一种常态化的战略补贴机制来维持长期的亏损开采。 ### `30:00` 军事实践的范式转向：从高科技神话到消耗战与钨的回归 在梳理钨矿历史的过程中，一个清晰的脉络逐渐浮现：钨在冷战后的漫长沉寂，本质上反映了西方世界对未来战争形态认知的彻底颠覆。转折点发生在1990年前后，当时不仅冷战走向终结，第一次海湾战争也随之爆发。在战前，许多西方特别是美国的战略家普遍弥漫着一种类似于越战或今日乌克兰战场的焦虑，担忧美军将不得不与萨达姆麾下多达百万的重装正规军陷入残酷的泥潭。然而实际战况却出乎所有人的预料：美军凭借压倒性的信息化、精确制导武器与电子战优势，在极短时间内便将伊拉克的军事系统摧枯拉朽般摧毁殆尽。 这场技术碾压级的闪电战引发了西方军事思想的剧变。正如克里斯·米勒（Chris Miller）在其著作《芯片战争》（*Chip War*）中所生动阐述的那样，芯片战胜了冷战。当时人们得出的结论是：既然苏联已经解体，西方就再也无需维持庞大的二战式传统武器弹药储备；未来的战力核心在于绝对的技术优势，美军可以远程精准瘫痪敌方的指挥中枢和电子基础设施，从而彻底告别旷日持久的“消耗战”（war of attrition）。正是在这种战略转轨下，对重工业消耗战至关重要的钨被边缘化，进入了漫长而冷清的“荒野岁月”。 然而，近几年的地缘格局催生了新一轮的“军事事务革命”。乌克兰战场已经鏖战四年之久，其泥泞的战壕、漫天的炮火和无休止的装备损耗，无一不在复刻20世纪的世界大战场景。西方被迫重新审视消耗战的现实威胁。更严峻的潜在考量则在于台海局势——届时面对的对手不再是萨达姆时代的伊拉克，而是“全球第一大工业制造强国”。西方绝不可能再像1990年那样轻易在技术上彻底压制对手，未来冲突极可能再次沦为巨量工业品消耗的比拼。在此背景下，作为弹药穿甲弹芯和高端工业母机不可或缺的超硬金属，钨再次重回地缘战略的核心舞台。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 战争形态认知与钨战略地位的周期轮动 accDescr: 展示冷战后海湾战争带来的高科技盲目自信如何使钨被边缘化，以及乌克兰战争和制造业大国竞争如何迫使钨重归核心。 subgraph HighTechEra ["1990年代至2010年代：技术制胜神话"] GW["第一次海湾战争闪电胜利"] --> TechDoctrine["奉行精确制导与芯片信息化战略"] TechDoctrine --> Neglect["判定大规模消耗战过时<br/>钨被长期边缘化"] end subgraph AttritionEra ["当下与未来：工业消耗战回归"] UA["乌克兰战争四年消耗战"] & TW["面对第一制造强国的潜在冲突"] --> Realism["意识到技术无法彻底碾压对手<br/>重工业弹药产能成胜负手"] Realism --> Surge["战略物资重估：钨重回供应链核心"] end HighTechEra --> AttritionEra ``` ### `32:48` 资本逻辑与国家安全冲突：最低托底价机制与“金库计划”的博弈 面对供应链困境，美国政府近期公开招标，征集旨在提振钨及其他12种关键矿物本土供应的方案。但这立刻暴露了关键矿产领域的根本矛盾：一边是迫切的国家安全战略诉求，另一边则是私人资本只追求商业回报的冷酷现实。要鼓励美国或盟友重新开采成本高昂的钨矿，政府必须提供某种形式的“价格托底”（floor price）机制。 尽管在经济学上，价格托底引发了巨大的哲学争论——批评者通常认为这是在变相给矿业公司“免费送钱”（giveaway），人为扶持缺乏经济竞争力的落后产能。但关键矿产的现实在于：全球唯一具备纯商业盈利能力的钨供应几乎全在中国境内。如果摆脱对单一来源依赖是战略刚需，国家就必须建立机制人为支撑中国以外的供应链。 然而，这种干预极易滑向失控的道德风险。由于几乎任何矿物都可以挂上“战略关键”的标签，如果缺乏极其严苛的标准，政府干预就会变味： - 美国目前推出了耗资120亿美元的“金库计划”（Project Vault），试图建立类似于战略石油储备的关键矿产储备库。 - 但该计划的遴选标准依然模糊，极有可能沦为工业界将铜、镍、铝、冶金煤等高度通用的普通大宗商品价格风险转嫁给纳税人的对冲工具。 - 真正亟需政策支持的，其实是像钨、稀土、镓、锗这样战略价值极高、被高度卡脖子但市场体量相对较小的少数金属。 - 政府应当提供的是为期3到5年的中期价格兜底保障，让矿企能够拿着政府的价格承诺去向商业银行申请融资贷款，而非替普通大宗商品全面买单。 ### `35:10` 播客趣闻与地缘隐忧：从男性颜值期到被垄断的柠檬酸 节目中穿插了一段彭博周末播客（Bloomberg This Weekend）的轻松花絮。主持人和嘉宾打趣道，现在社会不仅在讨论男性的“健康寿命”（healthspan），还在逼迫中年男性面对延长所谓“颜值期”（hotspan）的容貌焦虑——千禧一代的男士们被要求在步入中年后的几十年里依然保持英俊挺拔，这让嘉宾忍不住自嘲该如何在这场漫长的外貌修行中挣扎求生。 回到严肃话题，主持人随手分享了一个令人惊讶的地缘数据：中国竟然控制了全球65%到70%的柠檬酸（citric acid）供应。虽然大家对柠檬酸的第一反应是酸味水果软糖的添加剂，但它在制药与高精工业中同样至关重要——柠檬酸具有极佳的金属离子螯合能力，是清除工业设备内部水垢、矿物沉积物和腐蚀层不可替代的化工原料。这也进一步印证了现代工业供应链在细微之处隐藏着无数潜在的断链风险。 ### `36:20` 澳大利亚的内陆资源悖论与离子吸附型稀土矿的新版图 主持人回忆起大卫·菲克林十年前写过的一篇专栏，专门反驳硅谷极客对“小行星采矿”的虚妄幻想。菲克林当时指出，地球上本身就有蕴藏量极为惊人的矿产资源宝库，那就是澳大利亚本土；与其耗费天价去太空淘金，倒不如看看澳洲内陆那些沉睡的矿藏。然而残酷的现实是：即便这些资源就明晃晃地埋在地下，且工业价值极高，但由于地处极度偏远的不毛之地、缺乏基本的基础设施，光是组织开采的综合运输成本就高到让人望而却步。矿产勘探界充斥着大量微型壳公司，其运作往往就像是“资助地质学家拿着地质锤和试剂环游世界的度假项目”。正因如此，像拥有上百年运营历史和现成基础设施的澳大利亚金岛海豚钨矿（Dolphin Mine），在矿业世界里才显得弥足珍贵。 不过，地缘政治的封锁也在倒逼全球勘探逻辑的重塑，最典型的例证便是中重稀土（如镝 dysprosium、铽 terbium）所依赖的“离子吸附型粘土矿”（ionic adsorption clays）： - 就在五年前，地质界的共识还固执地认为，花岗岩风化后富集重稀土的离子吸附型粘土矿“只存在于中国南方”，全球其他地方绝不可能找到商业级矿藏。 - 但随着中国对这些战略元素实施出口管制、直接动摇钕铁硼永磁体产业链的安全，全球矿业资本开始全力以赴地搜寻替代矿源。 - 如今，这类原本被认为绝无仅有的离子粘土矿，已经在巴西、马来西亚、澳大利亚本土以及热带非洲的大片区域被接连发现。 - 尽管新矿床的品位和开采条件未必能比得上中国南方的天然优势，但一旦供应链安全亮起红灯，资本与勘探就会迅速打破“不可复制”的定论；整个大宗商品世界始终在“寻找新矿源”与“技术替代研发”这两条路径上不断演进。 ### `40:00` 关键矿产替代与小众战略资源的预算悖论 在矿业与资源供应链领域，稀缺性与替代效应往往如影随形。以电池行业对钴的依赖为例，全球钴资源高度集中于刚果民主共和国（DRC），开采环节充斥着童工等人权争议，且其性能表现并非无可替代。面对这些供应链痛点，中国各大电池制造商积极转向不同的化学路径，大规模采用不含钴的磷酸铁锂（LFP）电池，从而彻底摆脱了对钴的依赖。这种替代逻辑同样适用于极端假设——如果某种大宗商品稀缺到必须前往外太空进行小行星采矿才能获取，人类大概率会选择寻找替代品；而如果其稀缺程度尚未达到这种地步，企业与地质学家就会在全球范围内勘探新矿藏。当原有的供应链变得足够脆弱与不安全时，备选产地自然会变得极具吸引力。主持人甚至开玩笑地提议，既然黄金和钨的密度几乎完全相同，不如直接用黄金做弹药去切开敌方坦克，展现了军工材料对极致密度的特殊执念。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 资源稀缺与供应链替代动态机制 accDescr: 展示当面临资源稀缺与地缘风险时，工业界如何在替代方案、多元化开采与最终市场过剩之间进行权衡。 subgraph 应对路径选择 A["供应链风险与资源高度集中"] --> B{"稀缺程度与开采成本"} B -- "极端稀缺或高成本" --> C["研发替代材料<br/>(如磷酸铁锂替代钴)"] B -- "常规稀缺但有地缘风险" --> D["全球地质勘探与产能备份<br/>(开发新矿山)"] end subgraph 市场溢出效应 D --> E["多国重复建设与资本开支"] E --> F["边际通胀抬升"] E --> G["缺乏托底买家导致产能过剩风险"] end ``` 在送别彭博观点专栏作家 David Fickling 后，播客主持人 Tracy Alloway 与 Joe Weisenthal 展开了更深层的反思。面对庞大无比的军工复合体，许多至关重要的战略资源开采成本其实只是“四舍五入的零头”。在宏观预算动辄数万亿美元的背景下，一座钨矿所需的初始资本支出微不足道。然而，西方政府此前普遍缺乏“即便无利可图也必须投资”的决断力——毕竟整个国防开支本身在商业逻辑下就是亏本的。现实中，政府不仅没有给这些关键节点拨付几十亿美元构筑安全垫，反而在过去二十年间为了区区五亿美元将国家氦气储备逐步抛售套现。这种局面的根源在很大程度上属于对未来的预测失败：人们曾以为战争会朝数字化等特定方向演变，未曾料到现代战场会发射如此海量的巡航导弹、需要动用如此密集的钨制破片对抗无人机群，正如当年未曾预见到半导体繁荣会导致氦气需求激增一样。 - 刚果民主共和国（DRC）的钴矿供应链长期面临童工问题，促使电池企业加速研发不含钴的磷酸铁锂（LFP）电池进行彻底替代。 - 军工制造中由于缺乏纯商业用途，大量国防采购本身属于非盈利性开支，但西方战略储备此前仍因短视而削减（如抛售国家氦气储备套现约5亿美元）。 - 现代常规战争中巡航导弹与自杀式无人机的饱和攻防，重新拉高了对高密度金属钨作为弹药破片材料的战略消耗。 --- ### `42:35` 产业周期的中西差异与供应链去风险的通胀代价 对比中西方在关键产业上的管理逻辑，中国经济体系展现出一种特殊的运作模式。虽然中国存在特定行业的长期结构性低迷（例如房地产），但整体体制倾向于不将常规意义上的经济衰退视为必然周期，因此极少出现重要战略工业彻底空心化、在危机时刻面临极其高昂的重启成本的现象。即便在高度市场化的行业中出现失衡——例如生猪产业曾经历供给短缺导致价格暴涨、政府随后出台大量扶持政策推动盲目扩张、最终引发猪肉价格雪崩并导致民营企业倒闭——但在长期战略领域，中国总体上展现出更愿意接受较低资本回报率的耐心。 这种长远容忍度反衬出当下全球脱钩浪潮的内在困境。当前全球经济的一大主线是“去扼杀点”，各国都在争相建立自主可控的供应链以抵御卡脖子风险。如果所有国家为了规避地缘政治风险，同时一拥而上投资建设自己的钨矿或关键矿产产能，而在需求侧又缺乏最终托底买家（Buyer of Last Resort），全球市场很快就会陷入严重的产能过剩危机。与此同时，由于国家安全焦虑削弱了基于比较优势的自由贸易，资本被大量复制并投入到非生产性的战略冗余项目上，这种跨区域重复投资在边际上带来了结构性的全球通胀压力。 --- ### `44:48` 市场的自愈韧性、废料回收与尾声趣谈 尽管地缘供给冲击令人担忧，但自由市场在危机面前展现的创造力与韧性同样不容小觑。历史经验表明，当中国对日本断供包含钨在内的稀土及关键矿产时，外界原本预测日本的汽车制造业等核心支柱将遭受毁灭性打击；然而，日本工业界迅速通过强化废料回收、开发废钨（Scrap Tungsten）循环再利用技术渡过了难关。虽然在全球全面断供的情景下，仅凭废钨回收无法完全填补供给缺口，但回收机制确实能显著缓冲第一波供给震荡。 在节目的结尾，主持人们以一连串幽默的调侃收尾。Joe 提到自己之前买过的一个钨制工具刀头最近发生了碎裂，不仅罕见而且令人心有余悸，因此打趣称自己要退出钨投资领域。他们相互打趣说，节目的核心结论绝非“不要再去想钨”，相反“要继续思考钨的作用”。最后，主持人向听众致谢，介绍了制作团队成员，并呼吁听众前往 Discord 社区参与讨论，甚至开玩笑称要组织一次前往巴哈马群岛寻找 FTX 破产清算中那块著名的“超大巨型钨立方”的投机探险行动，节目在轻松的告别与平台订阅指引中圆满落幕。 - 日本在遭遇中国出口管制时，成功通过加速废钨与废旧硬质合金回收利用，化解了汽车等产业的部分冲击。 - 市场应对供应链断裂具备技术替代、跨国勘探与废料提取等多重自愈工具，但建立弹性供应链的前提仍需权衡冗余投资带来的成本溢价。 ## Notable quotes > `06:47` a century-old prediction market for war — David Fickling > a super-element that can determine the fate of nations — David Fickling > `20:00` 300 美元或 3,000 美元都是合理价格 — Alex Turnbull > `13:46` 只相当于亚马逊公司四个小时的日常开支 — David Fickling > `22:15` 这张走势图看得让人想哭 — Joe Weisenthal > `22:15` 这下真相大白了，肯定有人知道它现在值多少钱把它偷走了 — Joe Weisenthal > `36:20` 资助地质学家拿着地质锤和试剂环游世界的度假项目 — David Fickling > `36:20` 只存在于中国南方 — David Fickling > `44:48` 不要再去想钨 — Joe Weisenthal > `44:48` 要继续思考钨的作用 — Tracy Alloway ## Mentioned Joe Weisenthal, Tracy Allaway, David Fickling, Sam Bankman-Fried, Michael Lewis, Chris Miller, Alex Turnbull, FTX, Bloomberg Opinion, Red Bull, Peabody Energy, Caterpillar, London Metal Exchange (LME), Commodity Exchange (COMEX), Amazon, Chip War, Project Vault, Dolphin Mine, King Island, Sputnik, THAAD ## Video description <p>Bloomberg Opinion columnist David Fickling tells us you can think of tungsten mining as &ldquo;a century old prediction market for war.&rdquo; As he writes <a href="https://bit.ly/4ySeGpo">in a recent piece</a>, tungsten is &ldquo;a super-element that can determine the fate of nations.&rdquo; While the commercial market for tungsten is fairly small, it can be crucial in war manufacturing, due to its high density and melting point. He learned more about tungsten mining, and its increasing geopolitical necessity, during a visit to Australia's Dolphin Mine, which has a history of opening up during times of war, and then closing again during times of peace. He explains to us why investors are once again interested in tungsten mining and why it's been so hard (over the last century) to sustain production outside of China.</p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p> [Source](https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8a94442e-5a74-4fa2-8b8d-ae27003a8d6b/6ea24954-06b5-4daa-a250-b4980120947f/audio.mp3?in_playlist=982f5071-765c-403d-969d-ae27003a8d83)

[6:47] David Fickling: a century-old prediction market for war David Fickling: a super-element that can determine the fate of nations [20:00] Alex Turnbull: 300 美元或 3,000 美元都是合理价格 [13:46] David Fickling: 只相当于亚马逊公司四个小时的日常开支 [22:15] Joe Weisenthal: 这张走势图看得让人想哭 [22:15] Joe Weisenthal: 这下真相大白了，肯定有人知道它现在值多少钱把它偷走了 [36:20] David Fickling: 资助地质学家拿着地质锤和试剂环游世界的度假项目 [36:20] David Fickling: 只存在于中国南方 [44:48] Joe Weisenthal: 不要再去想钨 [44:48] Tracy Alloway: 要继续思考钨的作用

[25:00] David Fickling: The sums that we're talking about are absolutely infinitesimal. And the amount that it can move the market... this mine down in Tasmania, if it gets up and running, should be able to supply about two and a half percent of the global market... roughly one-sixth of the free world market. [40:00] David Fickling: If a commodity is so scarce that you need to go to space to get it, you're probably going to substitute it for something else instead.

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I'm Joe Weisenthal. And I'm Tracy Allaway. Tracy, I'm in a mood of a little bit of heartbreak this morning. Oh, mood of a little bit of heartbreak. That sounds like a country single, doesn't it? That's right. No. You're singing. I know what you're sad about. You're singing the Tungsten Cube blues. The Tungsten Blues. I actually a little shook In 2022 remember the Tungsten Cube hype Unfortunately I bought one And it was the only thing I well aware And it feels so good Like a nice big block of tungsten in your hand It feels so good. It's so unexpectedly heavy. Probably like a little like mild autism. Like I like related, like sort of like heavy things, like weighted blankets and heavy objects. And I was going to bring it to this episode because I know you love props sometimes. I do like a good prop. And I was like, oh, I'll bring a prop. I couldn't find it on my desk. So we did a desk move recently, and either somehow – I hope I still find it – either it got misplaced in the move or because the value of tungsten has gone up so much, maybe someone stole it. I think I know which one it is, Joe. I think I know. Let me just say – I have a messy desk too. For listeners who were lucky enough to have missed out on the tungsten cube craze, there was a moment where for some reason it was mostly crypto bros on Twitter all seemed to go nuts for buying these tungsten cubes and then showing pictures of them on social media. And then promptly, like Joe, forgot about them. And actually, this is a really good analogy for what we're about to talk about, because we're going to talk about tungsten the metal. and tungsten it turns out has gone through these cycles where for a few years it an absolutely essential strategic asset that you need in order to declare war And then as soon as the war is over you kind of forget about it You still need it for some industrial applications or for novelty desk toys. But then you find out that you need it again. And so there's this like long running kind of boom bust cycle. I'm really sad. You're a demonstrative example of how everyone seems to forget about Tungsten, except China. I'm actually really sad about this. This is, by the way, a little bit of... Oh, wait, can I say one more thing? Yeah, please, please. I know where you can find some tungsten. In Western Australia? In the Bahamas. Oh, really? FTX, famously. Oh, that's right, that's right, yes. Was going to install a giant tungsten cube at their headquarters in the Bahamas. And everyone seems to have forgotten this bit of the Michael Lewis book. At the very, very end of Michael Lewis's book on Sam Bakman-Fried, He says he found the giant tungsten cube in a storage unit in the jungle and it's probably still there because no one would want to move it. Yeah, so it would be so heavy. I have to say it's actually depressing me. You know, one of the reasons like I didn't buy the cube as a quote investment unquote. But I think I've always said, you know, one of the things that people don't talk about with hard asset investing is that you actually pay a negative interest rate because everything. [5:00] A, you have to either pay for storage, constant storage, like a safe or something like that, or if you have a storage unit in the job. Or eventually security guards, right? If you really had a lot of gold or silver or whatever. But then if you don't have that, if you don't do that, then every year there is like a non 0% chance that you lose your asset, you misplace it. Maybe you have like some keys to a crypto wallet that you lose or whatever. So that is a way of replicating, except sort of stochastically, the negative interest rate. I think I'm going to find it. I didn't totally forget about it. I had it on my desk even as recently as a few months ago, and I have some very messy drawers. So I think I actually, I'm not, I haven't actually given up hope. I'll create a bet on a prediction market about whether you'll find your tungsten cube. But anyway, setting aside desk toys, it turns out tungsten is actually, as you said, important sometimes. You know, it's not like copper or oil where it's important all the times. It seems to be a commodity that's important sometimes. And that creates, as you said, interesting dynamics. Yeah. And it seems to be growing more important because going back to the military applications of tungsten, we've had a lot of wars recently. And yes tungsten apparently is in a lot of cruise missiles and drone shrapnel and things like that And at the same time like a lot of other I guess rare earth metals it also becoming more important to our vision of the future to the AI build out things like that So it's getting more attention. And of course, again, like a lot of rare earths, there's a limited supply and it seems to be dominated by one particular country. Yeah, this is the thing. There's a lot of it, but it's expensive and low margin in typical times. So you're just like, yeah, it's like distributed. There's some in countries that are friendly to the U.S., some that are like more seen as geostrategic rivals. But in normal times, it's just not worth the squeeze to actually spend to spend the time and environmental costs of mining it. So we should talk about the current state of Tungsten in a state of heightened geopolitical tension. Let's do it. Anyway, I'm very excited to say we really do have the perfect guest, someone who we probably should have had on odd lots a long time ago. One of our colleagues coming to us from Sydney, we're going to be speaking, of course, to Bloomberg opinion columnist David Fickling, who has just done a big reported piece about a tungsten mine in Australia and what this tells us about all the things that we're talking about. David, thank you so much for joining us. How are you doing Great to see you Thank you so much for staying up late to chat with us Why when we talk about war geopolitical uncertainty all this stuff what is it about tungsten that suddenly becomes important Yeah, I mean, tungsten, you can look at it as a bit like a sort of century old missing prediction market for war, basically. And I didn't realize this until I started looking at tungsten. But actually, if you go back right to the turn of the 20th century, it has operated like a prediction market in the sense that people making real investments, once they get a sense that war is a real possibility, they put real money behind tungsten. And you can see the sort of process with that. If you're operating a tungsten mine, then you're in touch with tungsten traders and the tungsten traders are in touch with military, you know, material companies who get the first big orders when there's a real prospect of war. And this mine I visited has this extraordinary history where it first opened in 1917 during World War I. It closed at the end of the war because then the war ended. No one needed the tungsten anymore. And the European government sold it for their tungsten stockpiles. Opens up again 1938 before World War II starts. It goes through a bit of a struggle after World War II but then it more or less like rescued by the Korean War It closes down almost altogether round about when Sputnik is launched and people start rethinking what wars are going to be like But then it sort of keeps going through the Vietnam War and finally closes down the Cold War. And it's been closed. This mine, it's on a beach on an island just off the coast of Tasmania. It's a pretty isolated, windswept spot in the Roaring Forties. In 1990, it closed down, the mine flooded, and it was basically been ignored for most the last three decades and it's now finally starting up again uh at this very moment when war is looking more likely so this is extraordinary but just to be clear what is it about the properties of tungsten such that it is important for material i mean it's the same thing with the tungsten cube on your desk it's incredibly dense i think one of the things that attract the crypto bros to tungsten is it's not just incredibly dense it's about the same density as gold but it also has this ridiculously high melting point, more than 3000 degrees celsius, so three times hotter than lava, tungsten will still be solid. And that means that if you're trying to make projectiles with it, for instance if you're trying to make an armour-piercing projectile to get through the armour plating of a tank, it's going to hold its shape. Most materials are going to sort of turn into a mushroom and dissipate their force. This is going to [10:00] going to go straight through to the inside of the tank, so it'll be very effective. Or also, a thing that's more current at the moment, say you're having a sort of cluster munition, a sort of a warhead that explodes into a sort of distributed charge, so that you can take out a command post or a drone. With tungsten, you can have a bunch of very tiny tungsten pellets, and they will make a sort of metal rain that will smash anything in the vicinity. And because it's so dense, it's going to be much more effective than steel. So for all these reasons, it's just very useful for military purposes. And of course, if war is pending, people pay any price for those sorts of physical properties. Getting hit in the head by a tungsten cube would certainly be painful and damaging. Talk to us about the non-military applications, because it's possible, you know, you wrote about this new mine that's restarting. Maybe, well, we should get into what the investors actually say, the reasons behind them opening up this mine. Maybe it's because they're predicting more tungsten demand because of additional military conflict. Maybe they just think there's going to be more demand for like, I don't know, carbide tooling or something like that. What else is tungsten used for And then also we should also talk about how colorful some of these characters are But what does your merry band of tungsten investors say about their reasons for opening it You done your research Tracy haven you I mean this carbide tooling I could tell that was the, I mean, the key reason you will use tungsten is, again, because it's very hard. It's basically drill bits. If you're in an auto shop, then you will use the drill bit for working metal. If you're in a mine, it will be on the end of a drill bit there or in an oil well, anywhere where you need to drill something very hard tungsten carbide it's a mixture of tungsten and carbon as the name suggests and it's the best value way to get incredibly incredibly sort of powerful sort of drilling power and that's actually essentially in all sorts of ways that i think we don't often anticipate i was in the course of working on this article i was reading something about during world war ii when nazi germany when we can talk about this later was very concerned about its supplies of tungsten and they were running short of supplies of tungsten and one of the things they did is to conserve it for the weapons industry they stopped using it in tooling and you hear these reports of allied soldiers capturing german tanks late in world war ii and just going this this equipment's terrible because they didn have the tungsten carbide for the tooling so the machinery wasn working very well the gears were all out of out of whack and nothing was working working very well And so most tungsten now 80 of it is just tungsten carbide It tools And you can buy it in your local tool shop You'll find it everywhere. And it's a fairly boring humdrum element. The other things, there are a few other uses for it. Like almost every critical mineral, it gets used in some weird processes in oil refineries. refineries if you're as into critical mineral design there's always like five percent is always used as some weird catalyst in an oil refinery and and that's the case here another one that's actually quite interesting again because of these sort of high temperature high strength properties if you're making turbine blades it's very important for for turbine blades a lot of um you know in a jet turbine but also in a gas turbine which gets used a lot of powering data centers and things in LNG compressors, about up to 10% of that alloy might be tungsten as well. So there's a certain amount of demand for that. And there is even supposedly a use in some AI chips for tungsten as well. But the quantities there will be absolutely tiny because, of course, anything involved in chip making, the raw materials is just infinitesimal because the chips themselves are so small So the investors in this mine that reopening the Dolphin Mine I called them a colorful bunch earlier And it really does I think you make this point in your piece but it really does sound like a cast of characters from like a heist movie it like a red bull air and like some distressed debt guys and then some retired miners doing one last one last job but when they talk to you about their reasons for reopening this mine what did they say well the main one i was speaking to was actually the the chief executive of uh or the executive chairman of the mine himself. He was actually, he was brought in by one of these investors. As I say, if you look at the shareholder register of this company, it's like nothing I've ever seen of a shareholder registry, certainly of a company of sort of global importance. Like you say, I think the reason Red Bull are involved is that there's a sort of long Central European Germanic interest in tungsten and Red Bull are based in Austria. A couple of them are people who That's your new urge to acquire tungsten. I'm well aware. Yes, absolutely. The Peabody Energy, the American coal mining company bought a coal mine off a couple of Australian investors about 20 years ago and they used the payout from that to invest in this mine. They were some of the first people who were involved. There's a Caterpillar dealer who actually worked at the mine in the 1960s. He's one of the shareholders. The state government of Tasmania is one of the shareholders because they were bailing it out. [15:00] The companies that were leasing cranes and mining equipment, they basically took equity in lieu of unpaid bills. There's really hardly anything in the way of bank finance in this company at all. Its equity is about seven million Australian dollars. And the total cash that I invested since it started up really tried to get back into operations 20 years ago. There's been a lot of reports and environmental studies and things over that period. Total is about $77 million, you know, what Amazon spends in about four hours. So it's really very little money. I would say their ambition, they weren't betting for 20 years on war, but their ambition was that China produces 80% of the world's tungsten. And by 2010, you were seeing China threatening Japan, for instance, over its rare earth supplies. and you could see this was a potential risk even back then. And people around the world, there was one tiny tungsten mine, the US's last tungsten mine was actually just east of Los Angeles. It was a sort of retired Vietnam veteran who would go up to the mountains and like dig out a few tons of tungsten every summer And that went on until he went on mining until about 2013 I think He was talking back then in the process of writing this article, I dug out a letter that he'd sent to Congress complaining about reducing tariffs on Chinese tungsten because he was concerned back in 2012 that China controlled too much of this and was a strategic competitor. Back then, people weren't worried about it very much. Now it's everything everyone worries about. over 90% of publicly traded companies are listed outside the united states so why limit your investing opportunities to one market interactive brokers gives you access to stocks, options, crypto, prediction markets, futures, bonds, and more across over 170 markets in 29 currencies. The world is your market. Invest beyond borders. Join more than 5 million investors worldwide at IBKR.com slash invest. Restrictions apply for more information and support See IBKR slash YIBKR AI is entering its most consequential phase where scale safety and sovereignty will determine who leads and who lags Join Bloomberg Tech in London on November 2nd and 3rd as global leaders across business finance and policy examine the defining tradeoffs shaping the future of AI Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Salesforce and supporting sponsors, IDA Ireland and Schneider Electric. Learn more at BloombergLive.com slash Tech London. So I definitely want to talk more about the sort of economics and significance of this mine. But can you just talk a little bit more? You mentioned China producing 80 percent of the world's tungsten. Can you just give us a little bit more color on what the peacetime tungsten market looks like in terms of how big we're talking about? The sort of the I guess I would say the why there hasn't been so much investment. Like, what are the economics such that generally during peacetime, it does not make sense to do a new project, given either the size of the market and maybe presumably the cost competitiveness and the efficiency of the Chinese miners? I mean I think the biggest thing and I think this gets underestimated a bit because China does try to lock down a lot of the supply chain and a lot of critical resources But in the case of tungsten and I think it actually similar in the case of rare earths it has just happened to get the best geological resource of this by far And that's a thing that happens in mining. South Africa and Botswana have the best geological resources of diamonds. And Russia and South Africa have the best resources for platinum group metals. And Australia and Brazil have the best iron ore. That just happens. These resources are unevenly distributed around the world. And it's hard if you don't have resources as good as that to get a look in. China, going back to the turn of the 20th century, dominated global tungsten supply. And the only time that that's really changed was during a period in the Cold War when tungsten was basically closed off from the rest of the world. As soon as Chinese tungsten was able to get into the world market, their mines are the highest grade mines. And there is just more of it there. Now, some investors outside China in tungsten, alongside the geopolitical argument, they would probably say, look, these mines have been mined for a century. One of the reasons China at this moment has export controls on tungsten, I think it's probably mostly geopolitics. But the defense of that that the Chinese government might have is that these mines are very old and we need to reorganize the industry because it's an underperforming industry. So there is. [20:00] There's a fairly scarce resource of this. It's about 85,000 metric tons a year is all the tungsten that's used. It's not a super exciting market because it's very expensive and because it's mainly used in places like tool shops and mines. Most of that stuff gets recycled. If you're in an auto tooling shop, once your drill bit gets worn out, it might get reground or you might just send it and it'll be recycled. So there's not a sort of huge ongoing demand surge for tungsten. It really sort of grows at the pace of tooling capacity worldwide. Can you talk to us about the market structure of tungsten as well? Because I know Joe said he didn't buy the tungsten cube as an investment. But if you had, I mean, you would have a hard time actually looking up the price of tungsten right now because it doesn't seem to have a forward curve in the way of a traditional commodity like oil or something like that. So if you're an investor trying to make a bet on a tungsten mine, it seems really hard to predict what your current returns are going to be, much less your future returns. I think that's absolutely right. And I think it's one of the biggest problems with critical minerals generally, because there's not a futures market because there no way of hedging your costs With any mine you are making capital investments right now for something that might only pay off in years five to 10 Now, if I'm doing that with copper, I can go to the London Metal Exchange or COMEX and I can have as many contracts as I want setting the price of copper five years hence. And then I can take that to the bank and say, look, here's my operating costs. Here's the value of copper. Here's how much I'm going to produce. This is a bankable project. Very simple. Totally different with tungsten. There simply is no futures market in this. Because it's such a tiny market, most of the time, one investor I spoke to, I think he's been on a podcast before, actually, Alex Turnbull. Oh, yeah. He said, like tungsten, it could be $300 dry metric ton unit, which is the unit they use. It could be $3,000. $300, $3,000 each is a reasonable price for it. Because depending on the state of supply and demand of the market, the fact that China may suddenly close off supply and China has 80% of supply and then you have most of the world fighting over the remaining 20%, any of these prices is viable. And that means that if you stuck in the middle and most tungsten mines outside China are above that a ton level then you find it very hard to finance your mine No banker will really lend money to you on that basis because they don know what your revenues are going to be next year let alone five years from now. There's no forward curve in Tungsten, but we do have one ticker on the terminal, which is Tungsten held in warehouses in Rotterdam. And I said, oh my God, this chart just makes me I want to cry. It was literally, it was three, probably about $300 for a ton when I bought it sometime in 2022. And it is over $3,000 right now. So if I wanted to, yeah. I should say that's $3,000 for this thing, this weird thing, which is a dry metric ton unit. It's actually about $400,000 for a ton of tungsten. Wait, wait, wait, actually, this is helpful. Great. So when I actually, so when I see that 3,000, what are, what is this? I like learning stuff like this what do these prices even mean so i had to spend like half a day trying to work out what this even means so the the price you're seeing is a thing called ammonium paratungstate which is a compound of tungsten and it's a just it's a nice easily tradable form of tungsten you can just put it in sacks and ship it around the world and then i think you heat it and the ammonia comes off and you got tungsten oxide and then you can quite easily turn it into a lot of other things And that is priced quoted in dry metric ton units which a few critical minerals are quoted in these units A dry metric ton unit contains about, I think, 7.93 kilograms of tungsten. So if it's $3,000 a dry metric ton unit, it's about $400,000 for a ton of tungsten. So that's why someone stole your cube. It's good money. I'm really depressed about this. I got to find it. I got to find it. Oh, my God. Time to mark that. This is really bothering me. All right. Talk to us about, okay, this particular mine. Walk us through a little bit more of the sort of the economics or the best case economics. Let's say it works out. What are we talking about in terms of how much investment? And what a sort of flow, how much it could shift in terms of, you know, Australia's ability to where would it change in terms of market share and so forth? And like, what would it represent if it were successful? The thing that fascinates me about critical minerals is that the numbers involved are often absolutely tiny. Like I said, the total cash sum invested in this in 20 years is seventy seven million dollars. [25:00] it's nothing i mean i wrote a piece about critical minerals a few a few months ago so you know for think of the price of a white house ballroom which i think are we talking like 800 million a billion dollars now i can't remember what the latest but i mean you could solve the entire rare earths problem for the price of that and actually some of the investors who've been putting serious money into solving the rare earths problem with china though that's the order of money that they're spending. It's in the sort of hundreds of millions of dollars. And this is a time when we're spending trillions of dollars on AI or a single THAAD missile, one of these missiles that uses a bit of tungsten, a single THAAD missile costs about $10 million. So the sums that we're talking about are absolutely infinitesimal. And the amount that it can move the market, of course, it's a very small market. This mine I visited down in Tasmania, if it gets up and running, it should be able to supply about two and a half percent of the global market. Now, that doesn't sound a lot, but remember, China supplies 80 percent of the global market. So you're actually talking two and a half percent of the remaining 20 percent. And actually North Korea and Russia supply another 5 percent So it two and a half percent of the remaining 15 percent It quite it quite a significant percentage If you go back to sort of old commodities reports from the Cold War people would talk about the free world market. So that 2.5% is roughly one-sixth of the free world market. So for a very small sum, that's the sort of thing that you can acquire in critical minerals. And yet no one is prepared to invest in it most of the time. It's very similar to the selling down of the helium reserve. Yeah, that's what this reminds me of. Which is like, the numbers are, it's so pennywise or whatever, you know, it's so like, here's this thing that, okay, could be strategic in the future and we're going to sell it for like half a billion or whatever. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Well, also, just going back to China. So I take the point that, I mean, China geographically does have an advantage when it comes to a lot of rare earths and including tungsten. But it also feels like China is more willing to tolerate lower returns for some of these industries. And I guess treat the market like a little bit more like a chessboard rather than just a sort of short term spreadsheet. Does that mean if anyone in the West tries to start up a new tungsten mine can China just come in and flood the market very easily and suppress prices given that they still the dominant producer and literally anyone else is as you just outlined a fraction of total production Yeah, I mean, that and that is one of the main reasons that investors stay well away from this is one of the main investors, the reasons that they've stayed well away from rare earths. At the moment, one of the reasons tungsten prices are high is precisely because China imposed export controls just round about the time President Trump came to office last year. That doesn't mean that exports stop altogether, but it means that if you're dependent on Chinese tungsten exports, which every tungsten consumer is dependent on, you want to get your supplies early before those export controls result in the Chinese government saying, no, you can't sell it to them. So as soon as those export controls are taken off, then that sort of speculative action that's going on in the market, that's one of the main things that's driving up prices at the moment, that speculative action goes away. And so that would certainly bring down prices and then in turn bankrupt a lot of miners who were dependent on those higher prices. So that's absolutely something that has happened in the past. And not just the Chinese government as I said the first time this mine that I went to shut down in 1920 after World War One it was because the Allies in World War I sold off all their tungsten supplies and flooded the market A bit like the Bank of England with gold in the 1990s or any other mistaken sort of government sale of a commodity. You know, obviously anything that is geostrategic or used in warfare will have a spike in investment and spending during a war, and then it will come down, obviously. But, you know, we have the defense industrial complex, that there is an extraordinary amount of spending on munitions and so forth that goes on in peace and wartime, et cetera, producing new missiles. And there's a fortune to be made in that. At any point during, again, what we would call relatively peaceful periods, maybe the 1990s or maybe like early 2010s or something like that, were there any voices that said, look, as part of this strategic expenditure in the West, in allied countries, we should just maintain constant loss-making production and investment into some of these resources because again, the numbers compared to other defense or strategic spending just do not seem very high. I think there's a real lack of that. And I think [30:00] One of the interesting things that I sort of realized as I was working on this piece is that part of Tungsten's time in the wilderness was about a rethinking of the nature of what wars would be. Because in 1990, you have two things. You have the end of the Cold War, but then the also crucial military thing that happens is the first Gulf War. And the first Gulf War causes a lot of people in the West, particularly in the U.S., to really rethink what wars are going to be like in future. Back then, people thought it would be a Vietnam type situation potentially before the war actually started, that this was a million strong Saddam's army. We're going to be something that looks a little bit like Ukraine, essentially. And then, of course, it was this incredibly quick technological war. Iraq was very quickly devastated. You saw the sort of technological superiority of the US military. and that made people go oh okay hang on the cold war's finished so we don't need to be building up these huge anti-soviet military arsenals but also we are going to be vastly technological superior to every foe that we're going to fight in war so we need to have different types of weapons and i can remember did you have chris miller on the chip war author yeah i mean i think he describes that really well that dynamic how basically chips won the Cold War And that caused a complete rethinking of military strategy And so at that point, Tugson doesn't matter so much, because if you are so technologically sophisticated that you can take out enemy command posts very quickly, you can paralyze their electronic infrastructure and their entire sort of military command. and then you don't really need to be fighting this sort of war of attrition, which is where tungsten really comes into its own. Now we've, of course, had another revolution in military affairs. We've had another sort of rethinking of what war is going to be like because we're four years now into the war in Ukraine and we've seen in Ukraine a battlefield that looks like the big battlefields of the 20th century and it's still grinding on. And so that makes you rethink, are future wars going to look like that or not? And of course, the other thing that's looming in the future is Taiwan, a conflict with Taiwan, where you're going to be up against the biggest manufacturing power on the planet. Are you going to be able to technologically overmaster China in the way that the US in 1990 overmastered Iraq I don think people expect that to be nearly so easy So tungsten again comes into its own Yeah So I looking at a headline right now saying the U is inviting proposals to boost supply of tungsten and 12 other critical minerals So if you were going to encourage or make suggestions for encouraging tungsten production in the U.S. or elsewhere, what would you be suggesting at the moment? Because there does seem to be this real tension between a potentially strategically critical resource and then I guess the limits of private capital and people actually wanting to fund something that will pay off with a real return. I mean, ultimately, you need to have some sort of a floor price. There is a huge debate that has sparked in the critical mineral space about whether floor prices are a good thing or not. A lot of people will argue that if you have a floor price for something, then it operates as a giveaway to miners and it's going to encourage sort of uneconomic supply. But I think in the context of what we're talking about here, that's actually the point. The only economic supply of tungsten is in China. So if that is a problem for you you actually need a structure that going to encourage the supply outside China and it going to encourage it for a set period Now there is a huge philosophical problem with this because you can do that with every single material that could be deemed critical. I saw an article the other day talking about fears that China was going to lock down a supply of citric acid. You know, metallurgical coal has been put on the US critical minerals list copper is is on the u.s critical minerals list you can justify almost anything on this basis and that's a real problem because the u.s for instance has set up this project vault this 12 billion plan for some sort of a reserve of critical minerals something similar to the strategic petroleum reserve but it's not very clear what the criteria will be for inclusion in project vault and i think the risk is that project vault becomes a way of hedging price risk for fairly common commodities like copper, like nickel, like aluminium, like metallurgical coal. If the government is not very forceful, you don't actually end up getting the minerals you want in that. You just end up with the minerals where industry wants government-backed price security. What you actually want is a fairly small group of minerals where there is a real strategic issue. And I think tungsten's one, I think rare earths are another. Things like gallium, germanium, these are some of the crucial ones. It'll be much cheaper. [35:00] But you need to offer a medium term price security long enough that miners can actually borrow against that price security. So three to five years. The Bloomberg This Weekend Podcast. News, politics, and the lighter side of Bloomberg. Forget healthspan. Midlife men face pressure to extend hotspan. Hotspan. Hotspan, yes. So millennial men, you have to stay hot for like several more decades, David. OK, so you need to work on this. I got to work on that. This is like a journey. This is a really not such a way of telling me that. The Bloomberg This Weekend podcast. Subscribe today on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen. Evidently, China controls 65 to 70 percent of the world's citric acid supply. And citric acid has certain niche applications. Secure your sour flavored fruit candies now. Yeah it has some pharmaceutical applications Citric acid excels it chelating metal ions and removing mineral deposits scale and corrosion from industrial equipment i did not know that yeah i didn't know that either so so if there's a citric acid expert out there maybe that'll be an episode we want to do you know david there was a piece you wrote a very long time ago that has stuck with my head maybe like coming on 10 years now, I think. And I think it was in the context of some of the fantasies that tech people have had about asteroid mining. And I believe you made the point that, okay, yes, there may be asteroids out there that have extraordinary deposits of various minerals and metals of all sorts. But we also have a place here on Earth that also has extraordinary deposits of minerals and metals, and that is your country of Australia. And there's a lot of stuff just sitting out there, and it's a lot closer than space, but it's still too far to be worthwhile to mine, which I thought was really interesting. It's right there, and yet the infrastructure doesn't exist. It's just not worth going out there. It too much of a trek to get out to those parts of Australia Can you talk a little bit broader about this sort of Okay we can say this is in the ground but like and we need we want this This is industrially useful It in the ground. We know where it is. We know it's rich, but it's just not worth making the long 12 hour flight or whatever it is to get out there. I know it's more than a flight, but yeah, to get out there. Yeah. I mean, I think that the world of mineral exploration is full of this. And Here in Australia, there's plenty of very small cap mining companies, which are essentially like some of them are almost like a holiday program for a geologist. It funds a geologist's expedition around the world with his hammers and his reagents, because some of them are really just sort of wild exploration programs hoping to find something. We see this with Tungsten. This mine is an unusual one and it had been operating for about a century already. So there's an established resource there. But I mean, to give another example, a crucial group of rare earths depends on these things called ionic absorption clays, which when you get a very heavily weathered granite mountain, you end up with a lot of these clays which will capture some of the rare earths that we most concerned about things like dyspropium and turbium And if you go back about five years people would say these can only be found in southern China And one of the problems in the world is that there is no way that you will ever find ionic absorption clays anywhere except southern China But of course, now we're in a world where China is putting controls on these things. It is stopping exports of a lot of these particular elements. And it's at the heart of the sort of rarest sort of magnet supply chain concern. And believe it or not, all these ionic absorption clays are starting to turn up in other places. They're starting to find them in Brazil. They're starting to find them in Malaysia. People are starting to find them here in Australia and across parts of tropical Africa as well. People are suddenly realizing, OK, there are deposits there. They might not be as good as the Chinese deposits. There's a reason the Chinese deposits were the first to be explored. But if China becomes an unreliable resource, people are going to find them somewhere else. And I think that's I mean, there's two twin activities that happen in commodities and mining. One is the sort of substitution effect. Sometimes you're just going to say we can't use this. It's it's become too scarce. We need an alternative. I mean, a good example of that, I think, is if you look at electric vehicle batteries, go back five, seven, eight years ago. [40:00] People were talking about the importance of having batteries depending on cobalt. Cobalt's very heavily exposed to one country, Democratic Republic of Congo. There's a lot of child labor in the mining industry there. And also it's in some ways not quite as good. So a lot of the Chinese battery producers started using a different chemistry that doesn't use cobalt, lithium, iron, phosphate. And so you've substituted away from that product and you don't need it anymore. And to go back to the analogy with asteroid mining, if a commodity is so scarce that you need to go to space to get it, you're probably going to substitute it for something else instead. However, if it's not quite as scarce as that, you're probably going to be able to send out geologists around the world and they're going to find it somewhere else. And if the established supply is insecure enough, then the alternative location is going to get more and more attractive. Yeah, I think we should just substitute our tungsten use for gold. I mean, it's like the same density. If it's the same density, you could have just bought a gold bar. You just buy, you just start having gold based munitions. Those would slice right through that tank as well. David Fickling is great chatting with you. I'm so glad we made this happen. There such a fascinating journey and great reporting that you did So thank you so much for coming on Outlaws Thanks very much It does seem so crazy to me that we have this huge, the military industrial complex, etc. And then there's these few things that are like rounding errors. right the capital outlay for a tungsten mine seems pretty small in the grand scheme of things and yet no one was like let's just yeah sure it's uneconomical but so is all defense spending because you don't loss making because there's no market use for a lot of this stuff but it's like i don't know it seems like you just allocate a few billion here and there and you could alleviate some of these potential stress points instead you sell down the helium reserve over 20 years for half a billion dollars or whatever i mean to some extent it does seem like a failure to predict the future which is difficult right people thought that war was going to evolve in different ways we didn't think that we would be shooting this many cruise missiles or that we would be shooting shrapnel at drones or having drones shooting as much shrapnel and so like here we are with to some extent an unexpected need for tungsten and the same for helium in some sense because we didn know that we were going to have the semiconductor boom and things like that So hindsight is 2020. But I don't know. It does seem like maybe we should restart that tungsten mine in California. Should we go check it out when we're in L.A.? Yeah, we're going to be in L.A. in early September. Maybe we can find the guy who used to run it. We can go find. Yeah, let's go check out. I also, you know, I just think that, again, one of the things I always think about with respect to China specifically is the fact that there's not really a business cycle there. And they've never had they don't have these like they have secular busts, like obviously real estate, et cetera. But, you know, there's been this sort of like refusal to accept the premise that overall recessions are an inevitability. and therefore you don't get these like periods where it's like big industries that were once important hollow out and then it's like oh it's so costly to restart them i mean you do get some of that and china's pig pork industry is a pretty good example of that where there was a shortage and prices went up and so the government provided a bunch of support it over expanded prices collapsed and then a bunch of private operators went out of business so there is some of that but i do think in general China is more willing to accept just lower returns in general for some of these for some of these long term which also begs the question if one of the big themes of our current period in time as we discussed on the podcast repeatedly now is that everyone seems to be trying to build up their own supplies their own responses to like certain chokeholds in the global economy And so one of the concerns that you see now, and David talked about it, is, well, if everyone's trying to create their own supply of tungsten, even if it's a relatively small supply, even if it doesn't actually take that much capital to create a new tungsten mine, if everyone's doing it all at once and then you don't have a definitive buyer of last resort at the end, then people are going to think that we're going to become oversupplied. But in the meantime, all of this expenditure is at the margins, inflationary. So you have the double whammy of more spending on nonproductive things because they're strategic and the diminishment because of anxiety about security of free trade. So you get the double lots and lots of spending and replication of spending across multiple geographies and countries. The one other thing I would say is whenever we do these commodities, [45:00] So it's an especially lately, given what happened with oil supply in Iran, I kind of I always marvel at the markets, I guess, creativity or ingenuity when it comes to responding to some of these shocks. So Japan had its supply of a bunch of rare earths, including tungsten cut off by China, which I'm sure at the time was thought to be an absolutely dire thing for a lot of Japanese industry, including carmakers. But in the end, it ended up dealing with it reasonably well by sourcing recycled supply and scrap tungsten and things like that. Now, again, if China stopped exporting tungsten to everyone in the world, would there be enough scrap tungsten to replace that supply? Probably not. But for some of these supply shops, it does seem like you can get pretty good response. As we talked about with Javier Blas last year, we might have to go into a bunch of vacuum cleaners and pull out some of the magnets and stuff. Why don't you get into the scrap tungsten business, Joe? I can get you started with some metal tool bits. I had one that split the other day, which was really weird and unusual and scary. I'm done investing in tungsten, especially if I can't find this thing. I don't want to ever think about it again. All right. No more tungsten. That's the opposite message of this entire podcast episode. yeah right all right keep thinking about tungsten keep thinking about tungsten all right shall we leave it there let's leave it there this has been another episode of the odd thoughts podcast i'm tracy alloway you can follow me at tracy alloway and i'm joe weisenthal you can follow me at the stalwart follow our producers kerman rodriguez at kerman armand dasho bennett at dashbot kale brooks at kale brooks and Kevin Lozano at Kevin Lloyd Lozano And for more OddLots content go to Bloomberg slash OddLots for a daily newsletter and all of our episodes. And you can chat about all of these topics 24-7 in our Discord, discord.gg slash OddLots. And if you enjoy OddLots, if you want to support a speculative OddLots mission to the Bahamas to find that giant FTX tungsten cube, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. 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