Pentagon Directives Add Tailwind to Nevada’s Tungsten Mining Rush

The strategic tungsten deficit

At the center of this supply chain overhaul is tungsten. The ultra-dense, heat-resistant metal remains critical for armor-piercing ammunition, aerospace structures, high-temperature industrial manufacturing, and high-performance semiconductors.

Despite its multisectoral application, "tungsten has not been mined commercially in the United States since 2015," according to the USGS. This leaves the defense industrial base heavily exposed to foreign supply bottlenecks, particularly from China, which dominates global tungsten extraction and processing.

To fix this deficit, Section 4 of the new executive order instructs the Secretary of War to initiate regulatory action within 180 days to mandate alternative domestic source qualification.

Nevada: Ground zero for domestic tungsten

This directive points to market capital and focus toward Nevada, ranked globally by the Fraser Institute in 2025 as one of the world's premier mining jurisdictions.

A cluster of domestic exploration and development companies holding past-producing deposits across the state are racing to fill the structural supply void.

Guardian Metal Resources (LSE:GMET,OTCQX:GMTLF,OTCQX:GMTLF) represents one of the most advanced domestic tungsten assets in North America. The company’s flagship Pilot Mountain project, situated 200 kilometers southeast of Reno, holds an indicated pit-constrained resource of 8.694 million tons.

A recent pre-feasibility study outlined an after-tax net present value of US$660.3 million and an internal rate of return of 59.6 percent under base-case pricing.

The Department of War previously awarded the company US$6.2 million under the Defense Production Act Title III framework to advance the study, highlighting direct federal interest in establishing Nevada processing capacity.

Guardian also controls the historic Tempiute project, another Nevada-based asset with legacy tungsten production.

Similarly, parallel exploration efforts are expanding known mineralized trends, providing future sourcing optionality for defense contractors.

Spartan Metals (TSXV:W,OTCQB:SPRMF) is developing the 100-percent-owned Eagle Tungsten-Silver-Rubidium Project in White Pine County. The property encompasses the past-producing Tungstonia, Rees/Antelope, and Yellow Jacket mines.

Last month, Spartan announced the discovery of two new quartz-huebnerite veins—Spartan A and Spartan B—located one kilometer from the primary historical production vein.

"The discovery of additional vein systems at the Tungstonia Claims represents an encouraging development for our exploration team and continues to reinforce our belief that Eagle Project could potentially host a larger mineralizing system," Spartan President and CEO Brett Marsh stated.

The asset continues to draw direct federal inquiries as agencies assess upstream capacity. "Some of the leaders from the Department of Energy have actually called to understand, learn about the project, learn about the tungsten, learn about the rubidium potential, and just understand and talk with us how they could help us progress," Marsh told the Investing News Network in a prior interview.

Further south in Mineral County, Great Western Mining (LSE:GWMO,OTCQB:GWMOF) is preparing a fully permitted 7,000-foot reverse-circulation drilling program across its Defender-Pine Crow (DPC) project.

Machine-cut channel sampling completed in April 2026 confirmed broad tungsten mineralization across the trend ahead of the maiden drill program.

"Following our initial channelling in December 2025, additional machine-cut channelling in April 2026 has confirmed broad and significant tungsten mineralisation at the historic Dough God and Pine Crow Mines," Great Western CEO Ed Loye said.

The company, which secured its OTCQB listing in June to expand US investor access, plans to deliver a maiden mineral resource estimate for the project by year-end.

Future timeline

Under the new regulatory framework, the Department of War has 180 days to establish policies forcing contractors to vet suppliers for financial, foreign influence, and manufacturing risks.

Proposed regulations mandate contractors submit a written corrective action plan within 45 days of identifying supply chain vulnerabilities.

With Project Vault, the US Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve financed by the Export-Import Bank, exempted to protect emergency stockpiles, the onus falls squarely on defense primes to execute commercial off-take agreements with compliant domestic miners.