The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Metal Tech News - December 9, 2024
United States Antimony owns and operates the only smelter in the U.S. capable of upgrading raw antimony material into metals, oxides and other products critical to military and consumer products.
Perpetua's Stibnite project is home to the historic Yellow Pine Mine, which supplied the U.S. with critical minerals that are credited to shortening World War II by a year.
United States Antimony Corp. and Perpetua Resources Corp., companies at the vanguard of breaking America's heavy reliance on imports for antimony, are investigating the potential of integrating their expertise to establish an antimony supply chain in Idaho and Montana.
Antimony has long been on the list of minerals deemed critical to the U.S. and is of high strategic importance to the U.S. Department of Defense due to its use in military gear.
Currently, American manufacturers use nearly 50 million pounds of antimony each year for ammunition, batteries, electronics, fireproofing compounds, specialty glass, and other products for both civilian and military use.
"The demand for finished products around antimony are not only needed for our munition requirements from the Department of Defense, but are sorely needed by many domestic industrial companies that utilize antimony in their finished products, such as solar panels, semiconductors, fire retardants, roofing materials, etc.," said United States Antimony Chairman Gary Evans.
Antimony's criticality rocketed with China's Dec. 3 ban on exports of antimony to the U.S. Considering that China controls roughly half of the global antimony production – Tajikistan and Russia account for another 30% of global supply – this ban leaves the U.S. with few options for this critical and strategic metalloid.
With antimony prices on the rise due to supply shortages that had begun even before China first threatened to cut off exports to the U.S., the price of antimony trioxide has more than doubled since the beginning of the year to more than $39,000 per metric ton.
"It is no secret that antimony prices world-wide continue to hit fresh record highs after a prolonged period of supply constraints," said Evans. "The upswing in prices has gathered pace which is underpinned by depleting domestic antimony resources in China as well as other parts of the world."
United States Antimony owns and operates an antimony smelter in Montana – the only facility on American soil designed to upgrade raw antimony feedstock into antimony oxide used to make flame-resistant compounds for home and military use, antimony metal for bearings and artillery, and antimony trisulfide for ammunition.
However, there are currently no antimony-producing mines in the U.S. This leaves the Montana-based company reliant on imports from Mexico and other countries for the raw materials to feed its smelter.
Perpetua's Stibnite gold-antimony mine project in neighboring Idaho could provide a domestic supply of concentrates for the United States Antinomy smelter.
Perpetua's Stibnite project is home to the historic Yellow Pine Mine, which supplied the U.S. with critical minerals that are credited to shortening World War II by a year.
Home to a historic mine credited with saving "the lives of a million American soldiers" due to the strategic metals it produced during World War II, the Stibnite project continues to host rich stores of antimony that would be recovered as a byproduct of the gold also found there.
Once in production, Stibnite is expected to produce enough antimony to supply roughly one-third of America's needs.
Considering this to be a strategic asset, the Pentagon invested $59.4 million to help advance the Idaho mine project to the start of construction. Earlier this year, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) offered to loan Perpetua $1.8 billion to fund the development of a mine at Stibnite, which rounds out an all-of-government effort to establish a domestic source of antimony critical to America's economic and national security.
With the development of Stibnite expected to get underway over the coming year, Perpetua and United States Antimony have entered into an agreement to evaluate the potential of upgrading the raw stibnite (antimony mineral) materials produced at the Idaho mine into finished antimony products for civilian and military use at the United States Antimony smelter in Montana.
"The Stibnite Gold Project contains the largest near-term opportunity to secure American antimony and identifying domestic processing opportunities is important to our ability to supply antimony for America's defense, energy, and technology industries," said Perpetua Resources CEO John Cherry.
The testing carried out under this agreement sets the stage for a potential commercial production agreement that would establish a significant domestic antimony supply chain with links in Idaho and Montana once the Stibnite Mine comes online.
"The announcement today between US Antimony and Perpetua Resources is a move in the right direction to advance the concept of an integrated and solely domestic supply chain for production of antimony and the processing of this material through the only primary antimony smelter currently available in the United States," said Evans.
Perpetua recently received the major federal permits for developing a mine at Stibnite and currently anticipates that it can finish the permitting process next year and begin commercially producing antimony by 2028.
With more than 16 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration and technology metals.
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