Mitsubishi Materials Shifts Tungsten Sourcing to Vietnam as Carbide Tool Prices Triple
nashnova research
Mitsubishi Materials has cut Chinese tungsten imports to zero, shifting entirely to Vietnam; international tungsten now costs roughly three times the Chinese domestic price, forcing sharp price hikes on carbide tools while smaller Japanese makers face supplier cutoffs and lost orders.
Why did Mitsubishi Materials suddenly switch suppliers?
China restricted tungsten exports starting February 2025. Mitsubishi Materials' tungsten imports from China have since fallen to zero.
The replacement: Vietnam — including recycled carbide scrap (reprocessing used tungsten-alloy cutting tools to extract tungsten), keeping Japanese factories running.
This means → Japan's tungsten supply chain has not diversified — it has fully swapped from "China-led" to "Vietnam-led," a forced substitution, not a hedge.
How much have prices risen — and who is absorbing the hit?
According to Argus Media, international tungsten prices have roughly doubled this year. As of August, the international price sits at about three times the Chinese domestic level.
Mitsubishi Materials raised carbide-tool prices — carbide tools are industrial cutting instruments made from tungsten alloy — starting in June; some products saw hikes exceeding three times their prior price. CEO Tetsuya Tanaka said: "We still need to raise prices further."
Rival Sumitomo Electric Industries has raised prices three times this year. The industry-wide trend is unmistakable.
Big firms can cope — what about smaller makers?
Large companies can still secure raw materials at elevated cost, leveraging purchasing scale. Smaller carbide-tool manufacturers face a far harsher reality.
One small Osaka-based maker reported: some raw-material prices have exceeded ten times pre-restriction levels; customers are leaving, orders have dropped roughly 20%, and three of its six suppliers have cut it off entirely.
In plain terms = big firms pay more but still get tungsten; small firms cannot even buy the expensive stock — suppliers simply stopped selling.
How has Japan's tungsten import map changed?
Japan's tungsten-related imports from China fell roughly 90% by August 2026 compared with two years earlier.
China's share dropped from 47% to 13%; Vietnam's rose from about 5% to 20%; U.S. imports also increased.
This reflects an accelerating "de-China" shift — but the replacement sources cost far more, forcing a direct trade-off between supply-chain security and cost.
What does this mean for Chinese manufacturers?
Chinese carbide-tool makers still have access to low-cost domestic tungsten. Their cost advantage is widening.
This means → export restrictions are raising competitors' costs while reinforcing Chinese manufacturers' pricing power in global markets.
Mitsubishi Materials' Vietnamese supplier was formerly a partly owned affiliate; the equity relationship ended in 2024, but commercial ties continue — the Vietnam pivot is not a new channel but a deepening of an existing one.
市场有风险，内容仅供研究参考，不构成投资建议。