Tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal.
Tungsten, or wolfram, is a gray metal that is used in the filaments of lightbulbs and in drilling equipment as tungsten carbide. It's always contained within an ore, a type of rock that contains valuable minerals or metals. The mining process requires that the ore be crushed and the tungsten separated out, sometimes magnetically. Tungsten's main ores, or the rock it's found in, are ferberite, or heubnerite. Other ores are schleeite and wolframite. These ores are located underground in narrow veins.
China
China has the largest reserves of tungsten in the world, at around 60 percent. China exports mostly ammonium paratungstate, followed by tungsten oxides, ferrotungsten, tungsten metal powders, tungsten waste and scrap, tungsten carbide powder and other tungsten products. Chinese companies also have partnerships in tungsten mines in other countries, such as Australia. Some tungsten mines in China are in Tiantai County and Huangshi in Hubei province. The Chinese government controls the export of tungsten materials through quotas on products like ammonium paratungstate, tungsten concentrates and tungsten oxides. They've also closed tungsten mines that were becoming depleted, banning those that were operating without licenses and forcing those using outdated techniques, wasting resources or polluting the environment to improve or go out of business. Since these mines are not under state ownership, the government will allow those under bad management and with unmanageable debts to go bankrupt.
Increased Production
Tungsten's symbol on the periodic table is W, after Wolfram.
Because the policies of the Chinese government have caused world tungsten prices to increase, other governments have begun to increase their production of tungsten. For example, Bolivia began to increase production starting in 2001 and plans to reopen two closed mines.
Canada and Russia
The next largest deposits of tungsten ore outside China are in Canada.
The next largest deposits of tungsten ore outside of China are found in Canada, and its tungsten mines include the Mount Pleasant Mine in New Brunswick and the CanTung Mine in the Northwest Territories; the mining town nearby is called Tungsten. Next are Russia, with mines in Tyrnyauz and the Krasnoarmeysky and Pozharksy Districts; the United States, with mines near Boulder, Colorado; Kern County, California; and the Fern Mine in the Willow Creek mining district in Alaska; then South America and others.
Other Mines
Other mines include the Panasqueira mine in Castelo Branco in Portugal; the Hemerdon Mine in Devon, United Kingdom, which is not currently operational; the Ore Mountains on the border of Czechoslovakia and Germany; and the Mittersill mine in Salzburg, Austria. There's also the Buren-Tsogt tungsten mine in Mongolia; the Sangdong tungsten mine in Gangwon Province, South Korea; the Lonely Mine area and the area around Odzi in Zimbabwe; and mines in the Hoeyang and Chagang provinces of North Korea. Australia also has a mine in Kara in Tasmania and mines small amounts of tungsten from its gold-antimony mine in New South Wales.
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