Nevada’s Railroad Valley is home to a tungsten deposit that could be the largest ever found in the United States. Developer 3 Proton Lithium (3PL) reports an inferred resource of 1.78 million tons, making the resource more than five times bigger than the next known domestic deposit, with an in-situ value pegged around $152 billion at current prices.
Tungsten prices have skyrocketed since early 2025 amid surging demand from aerospace, defense, and industry. Export controls from China, which controls about 80% of global supply, have accelerated that price rise.
The United States largely walked away from domestic mining 40 years ago and now depends on imports for a metal essential to munitions, armor-piercing rounds, high-temperature alloys, and a range of Pentagon systems. As 3PL’s Kevin Moore put it bluntly to the Financial Times: “This is not a mining story. It is a national security story.”
Yet a big chunk of the prize remains off-limits because NASA objects to mining on about one-third of the company’s claims. The space agency uses the barren desert expanse to calibrate satellite instruments and insists that activity would interfere with a unique site for receiving and verifying satellite signals.
At NASA’s request, the Bureau of Land Management withdrew roughly 17 square miles from mining and exploration in 2023. 3PL is lobbying the Trump administration and Congress to reverse the withdrawal, arguing it was imposed without complete geological information. NASA’s position is unchanged.
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