Antimony Anticipation

China currently produces 60 percent of the world’s antimony supply, followed by Tajikistan (17 percent) and Russia (13 percent), making up 90 percent of the global market. US industry consumes roughly 50 million pounds of antimony each year, but China banned exports to the US at the end of 2024.

Because of this, several companies—and especially the US Department of War (DOW)—are looking at Alaska as an up-and-coming source for the critical metalloid.

Good as Gold

Antimony used to be considered trash. It is often found while mining for gold, and miners used to leave the antimony in waste tailings, thinking it of little value. The price of the mineral has quadrupled in the past year, rising from around $13,000 to $55,000 per ton—so mining companies are reconsidering what it’s worth.

“Over the past few years, there have been very significant discoveries of antimony, including at several of our projects across the area where there is massive stibnite banding,” says Gerteisen. “Stibnite is the primary ore mineral for antimony, and you can see it right on the surface at some of our prospects. This has drawn a lot of interest, particularly from the [DOW].”

Nova Minerals has been working on the Estelle Gold and Critical Minerals Project in the West Susitna Mining District in Southcentral for the past five years.

“On the gold side, we’ve been very successful in that realm; we’ve defined 10 million ounces of gold and, best case scenario, could be producing gold by 2028,” says Gerteisen of the 200 square-mile claim block. “We have two deposits of gold already defined and twenty other known prospects at various stages of advancement with gold, copper, and silver.”

As for the critical metalloid, Gerteisen adds, “We’re also honing in on two prospects, Stibium and Styx, for antimony within the Estelle project, though we’ve found it in other areas as well.”

According to Gerteisen, when spending the time, energy, and money to crush and extract gold, it just makes sense to divert critical minerals out of the tailing stream to an extraction plant to feed into domestic critical minerals production.

“With the whole critical minerals push, we’re taking a holistic approach to the project,” he says. “We’re not just assaying for gold or antimony but for a suite of about sixty different elements. We are seeing highly elevated concentrations of about fifteen other critical elements that are sought after, like scandium, bismuth, and niobium. We don’t know what these elevated concentrations mean yet, but we’re looking at the mineralogy.”

Rapid-fire Phases

In late September, DOW awarded Nova Minerals a $43.4 million grant to fast-track mining stibnite in Alaska to produce the antimony trisulfide needed for munitions.

“While there may be some smaller companies mining for antimony, we believe we will be the first to be mining it on a commercial scale,” Gerteisen says.

If all goes well, Phase 2 of the project will involve construction of an antimony refinery at Port MacKenzie.

“It would be the first of its kind; the first in America,” says Gerteisen, adding that it would also create an incentive for other companies to mine the metalloid.

A geological estimate shows more than 200,000 tons of antimony across the company’s site, which could support a mine for at least twenty years. By adding a central processing refinery at Port MacKenzie for other mines to feed into, Nova Minerals anticipates several decades of production.

“Even if we mine out our resources, other projects will come online once the refinery is in place,” he says. “What’s been holding projects back is that antimony prices have been suppressed; they haven’t been as lucrative as they are now, with a record high price of $60,000 a ton. It’s a good incentive for projects to start up, and there will be no shortage of antimony once a refinery is in place.”

Nova Minerals expects that Phase 1 of its West Susitna development would create at least 50 jobs. The Phase 2 refinery could add another 150 to 250.

Treasure Trove

It wouldn’t be a race without competitors, and Nova Minerals isn’t the only company pursuing antimony in Alaska. In September, Felix Gold guided members of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council and US Environmental Protection Agency on a tour of its Treasure Creek antimony project about 15 miles north of Fairbanks. The Australian company named for an Alaskan prospector is hoping to gain the permits needed to develop a small-scale mine that would deliver antimony by year’s end.

The mine would reopen a site once used to supply antimony during both World Wars. According to the company’s website, the larger of the two historic mines at Treasure Creek, the one called Scrafford, produced an estimated 2.4 million pounds (1,000 tonnes) of antimony during intermittent operations from 1915 to 1977. Recent drilling has outlined similar high-grade antimony mineralization at the North West (NW) Array target about a mile west of Scrafford.

Joseph Webb, executive director of Felix Gold, says the company’s trenching program has delivered outstanding results across both target areas at Treasure Creek, headlined by exceptional grades up to 65.4 percent at NW Array. He notes that these results further demonstrate the potential for two high-grade antimony production centers at Treasure Creek.

“With China’s recent antimony export restrictions highlighting supply chain vulnerabilities, Treasure Creek is emerging as a strategically vital project capable of supporting domestic US antimony supply for critical defense and industrial applications,” he adds.

Ester Dome Entrant

Joining the hunt in the hills above Ester, west of Fairbanks, is Great Land Minerals, a subsidiary of United States Antimony Corporation. The company acquired claims outside Fairbanks as well as near Tok and along the Maclaren River off the Denali Highway. In total, the company says it has about 120 mining claims covering approximately 35,000 acres in Alaska.

During the tour by federal officials in September, US Antimony announced it would try to recover antimony leftover at the Mohawk Mine near Fairbanks, targeting antimony in up to 5,000 cubic yards of waste piles that were generated at the mine in the ‘30s.

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources gave the company the go-ahead on September 5, saying that the operations at Mohawk are small enough in scope to meet permitting exemptions in state law.

The company will truck the ore 2,000 miles from Alaska to its home state of Montana, where US Antimony operates the only antimony processing plant in the country. It has applied for a permit to search for antimony and hopes to apply for more permits and start mining within a year. If its exploration efforts show a mine would be profitable, it may propose a small-scale underground operation.

Furthermore, much like the military largesse that Nova Minerals is receiving through its fast-track grant, DOW signed a contract with US Antimony to procure $245 million worth of the metalloid for the National Defense Stockpile. Alaska assets would help the company feed its Montana smelter.

As the race heats up to restore domestic production of antimony, Alaska is at the head of the pack. As the need for the metalloid continues to rise, so does the 49th State’s importance to the nation.