America’s military is desperate for antimony, and ASX explorers are in the box seat

• Explorers are locking up American ground with historic antimony deposits after China banned exports to the US
• Speculation is growing that the US military could back new mines
• Felix Gold is aiming to enter production as soon as the end of this year at Treasure Creek in Alaska

Since late last year, China has maintained a ban on exports of antimony to the United States, placing a chokehold on a metal critical for its defence sector.

Rare earths have stolen the thunder, the multi-billion dollar partnership between the Pentagon and MP Materials thrusting a spotlight on the Trump administration’s efforts to ensure it can supply its own critical minerals.

But the argument for intervention to secure antimony supplies for the world’s richest military is just as strong, and it’s being recognised by ASX explorers.

The antimony market is an opaque one, but it’s estimated China controls 48% of raw materials and 92% of refined product, responsible before the imposition of export bans for around 63% of antimony exports to the United States.

It’s so hard to ascertain the true state of play that America’s only antimony smelter in Montana, owned by New York listed US Antimony Corporation, can only estimate its market share – around 4% of the domestic market and less than 1% of the global market. The largest suppliers after China – Russia and Tajikistan – are hardly close friends of the Yanks.

Since reopening the Montana smelter in 2019, USAC’s sources of ore have all been imported, including from its own assets in Mexico. It’s a tenuous position for the US supply chain for a commodity essential in the production of ammunition, night vision goggles, infrared sensors and solar panels.

Entrepreneurial ASX companies are stepping into the breach.

Just last week, Red Mountain Mining (ASX:RMX) caught the attention of the market by acquiring 87 claims called the Utah Antimony project, directly adjacent to Trigg Minerals’ (ASX:TMG) Antimony Canyon project.

They were, incredibly, staked directly with the Bureau of Land Management for just $138,000, a handy deal if Trigg’s Flagstaff Formation structures extend below cover into Red Mountain’s turf.

Separately, EV Resources (ASX:EVR) picked up the Dollar project in Nye County, Nevada, to complement its Los Lirios asset and announced a deal to supply antimony it finds to Locksley Resources (ASX:LKY), owner of the Mojave rare earths and antimony project near MP, to feed into its DeepSolv processing solution for the critical mineral.

That also included a $1m investment from Locksley backer and strategic advisor Tribeca Capital, part of one of the market’s most renowned resources instos.

As an environment bullish for critical minerals hopefuls in the US emerges, another ASX company could be at the head of the pack when it comes to bringing the first domestic US antimony production to market.

Northern Exposure

It’s not true to say American antimony customers have been unable to get their hands on supply.

According to Reuters, shipping and logistics backchannels have opened to get Chinese antimony products to US customers via Thailand and Mexico.

But it comes at a cost. Prices outside China remain elevated – 5x levels seen in early 2024 at US$58,000/t.

And the US Government’s hunger for its own source of the metal has the real potential to bring new mines to market.

Felix Gold (ASX:FXG) has put its hand up to potentially become the first after making new high-grade antimony discoveries at its NW Array prospect, part of the Treasure Creek project in Alaska’s Fairbanks mining district.

Already holding more than 800,000oz of gold resources, Treasure Creek also includes the high-grade Scrafford mine, a leading supplier of antimony to the US military from 1915 to 1977.

NW Array could well be one of the highest-grade sources of primary antimony mineralisation in the West if recent exploration results are anything to go by.

There were two aspects of an update that had investors excited, pushing its shares 12.5% higher to an all-time high of 32c.

The first was the exposure of a 25m long stibnite vein in the same location as a trench sample from January that ran an extraordinary 3m at 50.26% antimony and 5.29g/t. The vein remains open at depth and along strike.

Hits from assays for the first 28 holes of a 90-hole program were also announced on Monday including:

• 7m at 5.1% Sb (antimony) from 37.6m (25TCDC004), including
  • 8m at 7.8% Sb from 37.61m;
  • 5.03m at 11.95% Sb from 41.27m; and
  • 0.73m at 24.93% from 43.14m;
• 6m at 3.0% Sb from 56.4m (25TCRC034), including
  • 6m at 4.4% Sb;
• 1m at 2.1% Sb from 15.2m (25TCRC027); and
• 3m at 7.4% Sb from 26.2m (25TCDC002), including
  • 09m at 10.78% Sb from 27.13m.

The news comes after key US Federal Government officials visited the site, including representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency, Permitting Council and the office responsible for America’s Fast-41 approvals fast-track program. If permitting and studies comes through, Felix suggests it could be producing a concentrate in Q4 2025 or Q1 2026.

“They said it’s the best infrastructure project they’ve seen on all the tours, all the sites they’ve visited and the most advanced in relation to baseline studies and just the small scale nature and the upside to it,” Felix executive director Joe Webb said.

“We’re navigating various pathways to get into production as quickly as we can. So we’re still very confident on those timeframes that we put publicly.”

If it gets there on time, Treasure Creek would be the first new antimony producer in the US in over 30 years. And there are plans to go further, with Felix yesterday revealing it was in talks with the US Government about developing a domestic smelter, which would be only the second in the States and the first using a local ore source.

Antimony surge

Behind that is a wave of interest in the metal, which has transformed the outlook for companies like Felix.

FXG stock has lifted 211% YTD to 28c. Now holding nine of the 10 best grade x width antimony intercepts on S&P Global’s database for the USA and five of the seven best globally, it’s a far cry from how the market viewed Felix a couple of years ago.

Back then Webb released what he claims were the best publicly reported antimony drill results in history, only to see the company’s share price retrace.

“I’d say the past 12 months there has been an absolute change to that, in relation to obviously the Chinese export bans on antimony, which were the biggest driver – the response by Trump, the alignment of all the executive orders from Trump,” Webb said.

Two in particular, the Unleashing American Energy order on January 20 and Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production order on March 20, have effectively opened the floodgates for direct government investment in critical minerals projects.

“I think the market was waiting to see if they were going to follow through and what that meant and you’ve seen things like the MP Materials deal happen, fast-tracking projects through permitting and I think the market’s woken up,” Webb said.

“The money’s flowing and it’s following policy, it has followed market opportunities and there’s nothing hotter at the moment.”

FXG raised $17m at 15.5c through Petra Capital in May, and has major institutions like 1832 Asset Management and Franklin Templeton on its register, as well as a number of Aussie instos. But it’s still in the small cap space at a market cap of around $140m.

Catalysts extend beyond antimony. With a record gold price around US$3650/oz and Kinross’ top tier Fort Knox gold mine just 20km down the road, Treasure Creek’s 800,000oz+ gold inventory is valuable in its own right.

Not all created equal

There are other considerations as well. Not all antimony is made the same.

Webb noted the met testwork Felix has done has shown Treasure Creek ore can produce a high-grade concentrate with low impurities, qualifying for use in military applications.

It has previously described the testwork, delivering an up to 69% Sb concentrate, as putting it in the ‘premium tier’ of antimony feedstocks.

According to market analysts Core Consultants, smelters are typically looking for antimony feedstocks with an Sb content of over 50%, with arsenic below 0.3% and lead below 0.4% with minimal bismuth and cadmium.

“It’s low arsenic, it’s low gangue materials such as copper, lead, zinc and other things,” Webb said.

“Most times you’ve got a lot of sulphides and gold and really low antimony, and you might be looking at half a per cent antimony and one gram gold, for example.

“Then you’ve got 98.5% of other stuff that’s waste material and you’ve got to try to get rid of it somehow.

“This stuff we’re seeing is sticking out of the ground at like 50-60% antimony already so it’s a very different proposition.”

The scale of the initial operations will be small, but meaningful from a value perspective, Webb said. The plan is to start with NW Array and expand from there, with much of the 30km of strike at Treasure Creek still undrilled.

“We haven’t drill tested our best antimony soil anomaly yet, so that’s about to happen soon, in the next few weeks,” he said.

“And then we’ve also got Scrafford, then we’ve also got what we call Antimony Ridge, which is an 8km structure with historical resources all over it.

“The main focus is to get Northwest Array into production and do the work on that, and then we’ll start expanding out in some of these other zones.”

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Felix Gold, Red Mountain Mining and Locksley Resources are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.