Huge "metal mountain" in Vietnam: 2nd largest in the world?

Tungsten mining stage. Photo: Masan Group

The most common application of tungsten over the past 100 years has been as a filament in incandescent light bulbs. When mixed with small amounts of potassium-aluminum silicate, high-temperature tungsten serves as the light in a residential light bulb, lighting millions of homes around the world.

Because of its high temperature resistance and high melting point, tungsten is also used in other thermal tools such as lamps, floodlights, heaters in electric furnaces, microwave ovens, X-ray tubes and cathode-ray tubes. (CRTs) in computer monitors and televisions, cathode ray tubes, heaters, and vacuum tubes, and rocket engine nozzles, which produce tungsten wire, tungsten rings, etc.

According to USGS, Vietnam is the second largest tungsten producer in the world.

Because of its electrical conductivity and relatively high chemical inertness, tungsten is also used in the making of electrodes and emission sources in electron beam generating devices such as electron microscopes.

With such a wide range of applications, it is easy to understand that all over the world there is a great demand for tungsten. In particular, China is the largest tungsten mining country, but also consumes this metal at a "huge" rate due to the high demand for industrialization and urbanization.

Tungsten in the military

Tungsten, when alloyed with nickel, iron or cobalt to form a heavy alloy, can also be used for military purposes. Tungsten alloys have been used in artillery shells, grenades and rockets, to create hypersonic shrapnel. Germany used tungsten during World War II to produce shells for anti-tank gun designs. Although these weapons were highly effective, the shortage of tungsten became a major obstacle.

Tungsten has also been used in dense inert metal explosives (DIME). Tungsten is used as a solid powder to reduce physical damage but at the same time increase the damage of explosives in a small radius.

In particular, tungsten has also appeared in an utopian military project of the US military: a tungsten rod that can hit an entire city with the same destructive power as an intercontinental ballistic missile - according to Business Insider.

Simulate dropping tungsten rods attacking from space.

The special weapon in "Project Thor" has been cherished by the US Air Force since the late 1950s. Its predecessor was the bomb without explosives. When attacking, the aircraft will drop solid steel from a height of nearly 1000m. These steel bars can reach speeds of up to 800 km / h when hitting the ground and are capable of penetrating 23 cm thick concrete.

Based on this principle, the US military came up with the idea of ​​using large tungsten rods mounted on satellites, and then dropping them from thousands of kilometers in Earth's orbit to the target. With 6m cylindrical bars, 60cm diameter, heat resistant tungsten bars will take advantage of gravity to increase acceleration and detonation on the way of falling.

When the point hits the ground, the tungsten rod will have a transport 10 times faster than the transport of sound, enough to penetrate hundreds of meters underground, enough to destroy all types of crash-proof bunkers. Its power is equivalent to an atomic bomb that penetrates the ground but has the priority of not generating radioactive fallout. This weapon can destroy all targets within 15 minutes of falling.

However, the use of tungsten in the military requires large costs and high technology. Particularly, companies that generate enough tungsten volume need to have a large account investment. Although the theoretical tungsten weapon is very powerful, the US project must also prevent the cost of putting 10 tons of tungsten into orbit, which also costs 230 million USD (in the Cold War).

Tungsten mining in Vietnam

According to data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Vietnam has the third highest tungsten reserves in the world with 95,000 tons, after Russia (400,000 tons) and China (1.9 million tons).

Notably, in recent years, tungsten output from Nui Phao mine in Thai Nguyen accounts for about 33% of global tungsten output if excluding supply from China, the second largest in the world.

Nui Phao mine has huge reserves of tungsten, fluorspar, copper and bismuth.

It is one of the world's largest identified tungsten deposits outside of China, with 52.5 million tons of WO3 ore of 0.21% average grade.

Along with that, Nui Phao mine also possesses abundant bismuth reserves. Bismuth is the heaviest naturally occurring non-radiating element, a precious metal on Earth, used in many industrial applications and consumer products. Bismuth reserves at Nui Phao account for 40% of the world's reserves, but only a very small part has been exploited.

According to information from Masan Group, with its open-pit mining method and low soil removal rate, the mining project at Nui Phao will help the company become one of the lowest-cost tungsten producers in the world. world. According to current exploration, the production life of the factory in Nui Phao is 20 years.

Masan said that the revenue generated from the sale of four products - tungsten, fluorspar, bismuth and copper - will help the project ensure profitability at all times in the price cycle of the products. However, according to Labor, although revenue doubled in the same period, after the first 6 months of 2021, Nui Phao Mining and Mineral Processing Co., Ltd still has a pre-tax loss of more than 281 billion dong, higher than 256.2. billion in the same period of 2020.

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