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according to a report by cnbc on august 28, as competition with china for key minerals intensifies, u.s. government researchers recently visited sangdong tungsten mine, south korea's largest tungsten mine, to assess progress in increasing the supply of key metal tungsten from outside china. sangdong tungsten mine is owned by a subsidiary of canada's almonte industries and plans to resume operations this year. tungsten is an extremely hard metal used to make weapons, semiconductors and industrial cutting machines, according to reports. china accounts for more than 80% of the global supply of the metal, and almonte claims that the resumption of production at sangdong tungsten mine has the potential to produce 50% of the world's tungsten outside of china. according to the latest annual report of the u.s. geological survey, the united states has not conducted commercial mining of tungsten since 2015. led by the assistant director of the agency's national mineral information center, four mineral resources scholars visited the sangdong mining area. it is reported that the u.s. geological survey will make a "significant update" to its assessment of the mine in a new report to be released in the first quarter of next year. the u.s. geological survey report said that of the 35 critical minerals identified by the u.s. department of the interior, the united states relied 100% on foreign sources for 13 in 2019. cnbc reported that over the past year and a half, china has begun to use its influence in the global supply chain of key minerals to control exports. so far, china has avoided any restrictions on tungsten, but the export controls on the key metal antimony that will be implemented on september 15 have led to expectations that tungsten will soon be subject to more export restrictions from china. gabriel wildau, managing director of consulting firm teneo, mentioned in a report on tuesday that the us department of energy has allocated $151 million to encourage domestic mining and processing of key minerals, and it is expected that western countries will respond to beijing's possible so-called "weaponization" of key minerals by accelerating the reduction of dependence on china. in the 1990s, the sandong tungsten mine was forced to close in the tungsten price war and was acquired by almonte in 2015. reuters reported in 2022 that almonte decided to restart the sandong tungsten mine in view of the important strategic value of tungsten. at that time, the report said that almonte had signed a 15-year agreement to sell tungsten to a us military supplier headquartered in pennsylvania, usa. the nikkei asian review reported in october last year that some western countries continued to supply arms and ammunition to ukraine, but found that tungsten, a key material needed to make ammunition, was in serious shortage. almonte once revealed that in the face of the shortage of ammunition, the us government also sent people to inspect the company's tungsten mine project in portugal.