This article is a sponsored feature from Mining.com.au partner Makenita Resources. It is not financial advice. Talk to a registered financial expert before making investment decisions.
Tungsten has emerged as the standout performer in a resurgent critical minerals market, with prices surging as governments and industry grapple with concentrated supply chains and growing demand.
The strong market backdrop is increasing attention on explorers such as Makenita Resources (CSE:KENY | WKN:A40X6P | OTCID:KENYF), which is advancing its Sisson West Tungsten Project in New Brunswick, Canada.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), tungsten prices increased more than sixfold between January 2025 and April 2026, significantly outperforming other selected critical minerals.
The metal surged 622% during the period, compared with 196% for tantalum, 134% for cobalt, 116% for neodymium, and 108% for lithium.
The result puts tungsten in a category of its own.
Tungsten breaks from pack
Tungsten’s price rise comes as critical minerals increasingly move to the centre of energy, economic, and national security policy.
The metal’s combination of hardness, heat resistance, and high melting point supports applications across cutting tools, electronics, aerospace, and defence.
Yet supply remains highly concentrated.
China, the dominant force in the global tungsten market, introduced additional export controls on selected tungsten products in February 2025, adding further pressure to international supply chains.
More recently, the US has moved to retain more tungsten within its domestic supply chain.
In late July, US President Donald Trump signed an order giving federal officials authority to restrict exports of electronic waste containing critical minerals, including tungsten-bearing scrap and shredded battery material known as black mass.
The measure is intended to direct more critical mineral-bearing material to domestic recyclers as the US seeks to reduce its reliance on China for strategically important minerals. The move is particularly significant for tungsten, given the US has not commercially mined the metal since 2015.
The changing market dynamic has also increased attention on projects capable of contributing to future tungsten supply outside China, particularly in North America.
North America looks local
The importance of developing alternative tungsten supply extends beyond commodity prices.
Tungsten’s applications across defence, aerospace, electronics, manufacturing, and other strategic industries mean access to the metal has increasingly become a supply chain consideration.
Makenita’s strategy centres on Sisson West, which directly borders Northcliff Resources’ (TSX:NCF) Sisson Tungsten Mine in New Brunswick.
The location provides Makenita with exposure to an established tungsten district.
The company has progressively increased its footprint in the area and in July acquired additional claims that more than doubled Sisson West from 9,845 acres to 22,665 contiguous acres.
The expansion followed results from an airborne magnetic survey and interpretation of regional historical data.
Makenita says the work identified a magnetic high and a potential drill target on the original property, with the company now formulating a drill program.
President Jason Gigliotti says the expanded landholding strengthens Makenita’s exposure to the district at a time when tungsten has attracted increasing strategic attention.
“More than doubling our land position directly against the Sisson deposit, at a time when Sisson has been named a nation-building project by the federal government, speaks to the strategic value of this ground,” Gigliotti says.
“Sisson West gives us direct exposure to one of the most significant tungsten systems in North America. Controlling 22,625 contiguous acres immediately adjacent to the Sisson deposit puts us in a rare position to explore the extension of that mineralisation onto our ground.”
Makenita expands its footprint
Sisson West has grown rapidly since Makenita entered an option agreement to acquire an interest in the project in November 2025.
The project initially comprised about 4,000 contiguous acres before subsequent staking increased its footprint. By July 2026, the landholding had reached 22,665 acres.
The latest expansion is designed to capture additional ground along a southwest-northeast structural trend identified through interpretation of magnetic data.
Makenita reported in July that large structural features interpreted from the survey appear to extend from the Sisson area onto its property.
Regional tungsten-in-till data also shows an anomaly south and southwest of the neighbouring Sisson deposit which Makenita says, based on interpreted ice-flow direction and dispersal patterns, could potentially originate from its ground.
These interpretations remain exploration targets and will require drilling to determine whether tungsten mineralisation is present.
Nevertheless, Gigliotti says the results give the company a defined area on which to focus its next phase of exploration.
Neighbour adds strategic context
The neighbouring Sisson Project adds another dimension to Makenita’s position.
Canada selected the Sisson Tungsten Mine as a nation-building project in November 2025, placing the development within a broader push to advance strategically important domestic infrastructure and mineral supply.
For Makenita, the combination of location and timing is central to the Sisson West strategy.
“Tungsten is a critical mineral with no meaningful North American supply chain today. As governments and industry look to de-risk critical mineral supply, a project of this scale sitting next to an advanced-stage deposit becomes strategically important,” Gigliotti says.
The company says it has just over 35 million shares outstanding and anticipates an active remainder of 2026 across its project portfolio.
Beyond tungsten
Sisson West forms part of a wider Canadian critical minerals portfolio for Makenita.
The company also holds the Serpentinization Iron-Magnetite Project in Saskatchewan, which Makenita expanded to 116,149 contiguous acres in June 2026.
Its other interests include the NTX Rare Earth Project in Québec and the Hector Silver-Cobalt Project in Ontario.
However, tungsten provides Makenita with exposure to a commodity that has sharply outperformed the wider critical minerals market.
For investors following tungsten, that exploration comes against an unusual market backdrop, with the commodity pulling away from the broader critical minerals pack as concerns around supply concentration strengthen the strategic case for identifying potential new sources outside China.
Makenita now has to establish whether Sisson West can become one of them.
Write to Bruno Venditti at Mining.com.au
Images: Makenita Resources
