Blinkers Off: Every ASX junior with a horse in the West’s antimony race

Prices of critical mineral antimony are flying through the roof after China made a surprise announcement to restrict exports earlier this month and ASX stocks with exposure to the semi-metal have started to go gangbusters.

The reason it’s so hot right now is that China is the largest producer of antimony (Sb) on the planet – by quite some margin – and it’s just restricted exports of the commodity, adding to the pile of commodities it’s already put the blinkers on, which include germanium, gallium and graphite.

Cheap domestic labour and cheap high-carbon-emitting mining and refining practices out of China for these once obscure minerals have meant the rest of the world has been happily importing low-cost raw and refined materials from the Middle Kingdom for decades.

China knows this and is wielding export restraints of commodities it’s monopolised as a geopolitical weapon.

What’s it for?

Usually found within certain types of gold deposits, antimony is a semi-metallic chemical element which can exist in two forms: the metallic form is bright, silvery, hard and brittle; the non-metallic form is, well, one of the most explosive materials on the planet.

We need more of it, because it’s increasingly used in high-tech applications such as lithium-ion batteries, solar panels and wind turbines due to its flame retardant and anti-corrosion properties.

Prices up under the radar

By the end of 2020 prices were below US$6000/t. Prices have gone up incrementally, yet since the start of the year when a tonne of the stuff would fetch ~$US12,000, it’s only taken eight months for that price to almost double up to current all-time highs of US$24,500t at time of writing.

Chinese exports have slowly been declining under the radar over the past few years, too, falling 45% year-on-year for H1 2024.

Analysts are wary of too much heat on the commodity, yet how it plays out remains to be seen.

“Much of the renewed interest in antimony came from the news… that China announced that export controls on antimony would take effect on September 15,” Far East Capital analyst Warwick Grigor says.

“It is uncertain what this means exactly. There will be restrictions on exports, yes, but we are not sure whether this actually means a complete ban on exports.”

The blinkers are now off, and there’s a bunch of ASX ressies champing at the bit to get involved in adding to ex-China supply chains.

ASX juniors in the race

In Australia, the Costerfield mine in Victoria is the only producing antimony mine and accounts for about 2% of global supply.

With prices on the rise, some ASX explorers have already been looking at monetising their antimony endowments, while others are only just discovering they have projects with some pretty high grades of the stuff.

One of the latter is Larvotto Resources’ (ASX:LRV) Hillgrove project, which it paid $8m for, carrying 90,000t-worth of Sb on top of its gold endowment. It reckons that even at the now very conservative US$15,000t/sb mark it would have a capex of $72m and an NPV8 of $157m.

With today’s prices that NPV8 sits at an eye-whopping $383m with an IRR of 114%.

Nearby, Lode Resources (ASX:LDR) has secured the historical Magwood antimony mine and is getting to ground across 19 identified antimony prospects where production grades between 1941 and 1970 were recorded to be between 4-62% Sb.

Enthusiasm has spilled over to other antimony hopefuls, too, such as Nagambie Resources (ASX:NAG), Siren Gold (ASX:SNG) and Southern Cross Gold (ASX:SXG).

Nagambie, for instance, rarely trades more than $10,000 a day on market, yet more than $1m worth was traded over the space of a week earlier this month. The stock is up 187% in the past four weeks without making an announcement during that time.

Earlier this week Iltani Resources (ASX:ILT) revealed its own antimony potential with a site visit to the Antimony Reward prospect, part of its Herberton project in northeast Queensland.

Sun Silver (ASX:SS1) has hit anomalous antimony readings at its potentially world-class 292Moz Maverick Springs silver project, too, and is investigating further.

Last year, Felix Gold (ASX:FXG) revealed up to an impressive 28% Sb from 6.1m near the surface at its NW Array prospect within its Treasure Creek project in Alaska and further assessment from 2022 drill holes have shown up to 15.99% Sb.

FXG’s tenure also includes the historical Scrafford antimony mine, which achieved production grades of up to a whopping 58% Sb.

The explorer is now assessing the viability of standalone, near-term and high-grade antimony production and collaborating with relevant US agencies that support critical minerals supply chain security.

Elsewhere, Black Cat Syndicate (ASX:BC8) has antimony upside at Mt Clement in WA and iTech Minerals (ASX:ITM) has found significant grades on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.

And yesterday, TechGen Metals (ASX:TG1) revealed up to 7.05% Sb hits at its Station Creek project in WA’s Pilbara from historical datasets and is investigating further.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Sun Silver and Felix Gold are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.