The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Metal Tech News - January 6, 2025
Workers collect water samples as part of Perpetua Resource's ongoing remediation of legacy mining at Stibnite Gold and its plans for modern precious and critical minerals production at this Idaho project.
A historic mine at Stibnite provided a strategic domestic supply of minerals critical to the U.S. during World War II.
The Stibnite Mine plan submitted for federal permitting was designed to rehabilitate environmental damage from legacy mining on the Idaho property.
"We Did It!" Perpetua Resources Corp.'s three-word response to the U.S. Forest Service's authorization of its plan to build and operate the Stibnite Mine underscores both the significance of this major milestone for gold-antimony project in Idaho and the excitement of finally reaching the finish line after nearly a decade of federal permitting process for a mine that will provide good paying jobs, cleans up the environment, and deliver a mineral that is highly critical to the U.S.
"The Stibnite Gold Project can deliver decisive wins for our communities, the environment, the economy, and our national security," Perpetua Resources President and CEO Jon Cherry said in a Jan. 6 statement on the federal authorization of the proposed Stibnite Mine.
While the rehabilitation of environmental impacts from legacy mining at Stibnite, along with the economic wins for the communities surrounding the Idaho project, will primarily be funded by the roughly 450,000 ounces of gold produced at the future mine each year, the value of the antimony that will also be produced goes beyond what it will contribute to the operation's bottom line.
As one of the few elements that share both the properties of metals and nonmetals, antimony is a metalloid that is critical to numerous industrial, high-tech, and military applications. With no mines in the U.S. currently producing antimony, American manufacturers rely heavily on imports from China and Russia for the nearly 50 million pounds of this semimetal they need each year for ammunition, batteries, electronics, fireproofing compounds, specialty glass, and other products for both civilian and military use.
Antimony's criticality rose sharply with China's December ban on exports to the U.S. Considering that China controls roughly half of the global antimony supply – Tajikistan and Russia account for another 30% – this ban leaves the U.S. with few options for this critical and strategic metalloid.
The future Stibnite Mine is expected to meet about one-third of domestic antimony needs, but American manufacturers will have to wait roughly another three years for construction to be complete before this domestic supply comes online.
A historic mine at Stibnite provided a strategic domestic supply of minerals critical to the U.S. during World War II.
Perpetua started on the path to producing gold and antimony at Stibnite back in 2010. After about six years of exploration and planning, Perpetua applied for federal permits to develop the mine under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 2016.
The mine plan submitted for permitting was designed to produce gold and antimony, while at the same time cleaning up environmental damage from a legacy operation on the Stibnite property that delivered critical minerals to America's military efforts during World War II.
Perpetua says its vision to "Restore the Site" is embedded throughout the mine plan approved by the Forest Service. The site rehabilitation initiatives that will be carried out alongside the mining at Stibnite include:
• Improving water quality by reprocessing and safely storing tailings from legacy mining.
• Restoring native fish passage, opening miles of spawning habitat that has been inaccessible for 80 years.
• Restoring 450 acres of wetlands, a 63% net increase in wetlands on the property.
Even with the plans to clean up legacy environmental impacts at a mine that will provide a domestic source of a metalloid critical to America's economy and national security, it took Perpetua nearly a decade to get through the federal permitting process that culminated in the U.S. Forest Service's Jan. 3 final record of decision.
"After years of work to make the Stibnite Gold Project the strongest it can be, we are incredibly proud to have reached this milestone," said Alan Haslam, vice president of permitting for Perpetua Resources. "Obtaining the Forest Service's approval for our plan has taken the combined efforts and talents of so many people, and we are humbled to watch it graduate to the next phase of development."
The Stibnite Mine plan submitted for federal permitting was designed to rehabilitate environmental damage from legacy mining on the Idaho property.
With the U.S. Forest Service issuing the final record of decision for Stibnite, Perpetua can now focus on finalizing the federal and state permitting process and securing the funds needed to develop the mine.
The funding aspect of moving the Stibnite Mine to production has been made easier by a $1.8 billion loan offer extended by the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), which is the export credit agency for the U.S. government.
The proposed EXIM loan would provide the funding to build the antimony-gold mine backed by grants from the U.S. Department of Defense through the engineering and permitting phases.
"We are seeing a whole-of-government approach to bring antimony production home," Cherry said early last year. "From EXIM's potential financing of up to $1.8 billion to the multiple Department of Defense's multi-million-dollar awards to Perpetua, there is a profound recognition that we need domestic antimony production now."
The roughly three-year gap between the urgent need for antimony and when the Stibnite mine will begin delivering the critical metalloid underscores the need for permitting reform in the U.S.
Stibnite is not the outlier when it comes to mine permitting. In fact, if the gold-antimony mine goes into production in 2028, as currently scheduled, it would be about a decade faster than the average mining operation in the U.S.
A recent study completed by S&P Global found that it takes 29 years to develop a mine in the U.S., second only to Zambia (34 years), for the longest time from mineral discovery to mine production. This long lead time makes it difficult for American manufacturers to depend on domestic mineral sources that may be available in three decades.
Passing legislation that streamlines the federal permitting process for mines and other large projects is expected to be a high priority for Congress and President-elect Donald Trump.
In December, Trump said anyone making a $1 billion investment in large U.S. projects "will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals."
"GET READY TO ROCK!!!" he posted to his Truth Social page.
While this streamlined permitting proposal is too late for Stibnite, other U.S. critical mineral project developers may be able to declare "We Did It!" in less than eight years after submitting their applications for federal authorization.
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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