CHICAGO-based CME Group aims to launch tungsten futures by the first quarter of 2027 as global rearmament and soaring prices send western companies scrambling for supply, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
The contract will be cash-settled, letting users hedge without taking physical delivery. Jin Hennig, a CME MD, said corporates could lock in prices in a “volatile” market, adding that tungsten traders had shown keen interest.
Prized for hardness and a high melting point, tungsten goes into armour-piercing bullets and other munitions, drill bits and machinery. Prices have soared this year since dominant producer China curbed exports. Like rare earths and chip metal gallium, also restricted by Beijing, it trades opaquely, mostly bilaterally or through traders.
The contract is expected to help manage physical trading and logistics risks and gain cost certainty for buyers.
The US and UK have taken equity stakes in tungsten groups via financing packages backing non-Chinese supply chains.
Prices will track Fastmarkets’ Rotterdam and Baltimore assessments for ammonium paratungstate, a powder used in manufacturing.
The rally has cooled as buyers push back, though prices remain well above historical norms, said Andrew Wells of Fastmarkets.
CME, which also launched lithium and cobalt futures, saw metals trading rise 41% year on year in the first nine months of 2026, to 1.2 million contracts daily.