Broker Shard has released a flash note on Great Western Mining (GWMO ), following the release of the latest tungsten assays from the company’s Defender-Pine Crow project in Nevada.
The assays were from four machine-cut trenches that were undertaken by the company in April 2026, all of which showed good tungsten grades.
“We are encouraged with the significant widths of tungsten mineralisation identified from the channel sampling programme, with grades up to 0.34% WO3,” wrote Shard’s analyst Sheldon Modeland.
“Channel samples are a cost effective and accurate representation of in-situ mineralisation. On aggregate, the tungsten mineralisation has now been identified along a three-kilometre trend connecting the past producing Dough God, Pine Crow and Widowmaker mines. The area has a history of tungsten production and known deposits including nearby Desert Scheelite deposit which has a JORC-compliant mineral reserve estimate of 20.3kt of WO3 grading 0.17% WO3.”
Additionally, Modeland cast an eye into the future, as Great Western is now gearing up for a drilling campaign on Defender-Pine Crow, and is aiming to get a maiden resource out on the project before the end of the year.
We look forward to the company’s fully permitted maiden drill programme comprising around 2,000 metres in the coming weeks,” continued Modeland.
And he added further thoughts about the wider economic backdrop, and favourable tungsten price environment.
“We note that the current spot price for tungsten (ammonium paratungstate, APT), a key intermediate in the production of tungsten metal, is around US$1,705 per metric tonne unit, significantly higher than the 10-year average of around USa$300 per mtu. These higher prices are on the back of recent Chinese export restrictions, supply constraints coupled with increased defence spending. Currently, there is zero production of tungsten in the US and China controls around 80% of global production, and 97% of global processing capabilities. The role of tungsten as a critical mineral for industries and a key military metal is prompting a major restocking of supplies and resourcing of non-Chinese supply lines. As such, we expect prices to be well supported at current levels and non-Chinese producers and developers to gather further attention from end users looking to diversify current supply chains.”
View from Vox
Great Western’s exploration work at Defender-Pine Crow is now beginning to delineate a sizeable footprint for potential mineralisation. We know there’s quite a lot at surface – the next step will be to see what sort of grades the drilling returns at depth. At that stage the project will begin to take on a three-dimensional aspect, and real work towards building a resource base can get underway.