Expands into Chinese-banned resource for national security, defense.

With growing concerns over the stability of critical mineral supply chains, American Resources Corp. has expanded its South African partnership to refine high-purity antimony for commercial and defense applications, leveraging its refining expertise initially developed for rare earth elements.

Striking a deal in June 2023 to purchase and refine lithium spodumene from a South African supplier, American Resources Corp., through its subsidiary ReElement Technologies, aimed to establish a steady feedstock for producing battery-grade lithium for the growing energy storage market.

Founded in 2022 to develop advanced refining solutions for rare earth minerals, ReElement quickly expanded its capabilities to include lithium recycling, achieving battery-grade purity by 2023 before turning its focus to antimony refining.

"Our approach of catalyzing and synthesizing a robust domestic supply chain through innovative, midstream refining solutions continue yield tremendous results, enabling us to effectively source critical, rare earth and other defense elements that are urgently needed in the United States and allied nations," said American Resources and ReElement Technologies CEO Mark Jensen. "Today, we are excited to announce our expanded partnership with an exclusive source of antimony-bearing ore feedstock."

As part of its latest expansion, ReElement has received high-grade antimony ore with a concentration exceeding 50% and is developing a refining process to produce high-purity antimony(III) sulfide and antimony(III) oxide-compounds essential for batteries, flame retardants, and munitions.

"We have received and assayed the material, confirming it to be of exceptional high grade," said Jensen. "Based on our ongoing development work, we anticipate a very cost-effective refining process to produce ultra-pure commercial products."

With the global antimony(III) oxide market expected to climb from $852 million in 2023 to $1.43 billion by 2034, demand for the critical mineral has been steadily rising. However, China's decision to restrict exports of antimony, germanium, and gallium in late 2024 reshaped the global supply landscape, accelerating ReElement's move into antimony refining.

Jensen noted that antimony had not been an immediate priority for ReElement, with its existing focus on refining rare earth elements and other critical minerals.

"Given our current operational focus and daily production of both light and heavy rare earth elements, along with other critical minerals in ultra-pure commercial forms, we had not initially prioritized antimony production," he said. "However, China's recent ban on exports of antimony, germanium and gallium accelerated this opportunity, allowing us to showcase the versatile, scalability and flexibility of our technology on a global scale-filling the supply gap now present in the United States and other allied nations."

The partnership will initially target 1,000 metric tons of antimony-bearing ore per month, with the potential to scale based on market demand and offtake agreements.