Canadian Miner Fast-Tracks Antimony Extraction to Bolster U.S. Defense Supply Chain
A Canadian miner says it found a rapid way to mine a critical mineral that is key to defence sectors around the world.
But its focus is to help the U.S. military.
Vancouver-based NevGold Corp. says it is extracting antimony from historic mine waste in Nevada that is already sitting on the surface.
The urgency comes as antimony has become a growing focus for Western governments because China blocked exports of the mineral to the United States in late 2024, says the company’s president, Brandon Bonifacio.
The move exposed a major supply gap in North America, which puts companies like NevGold in the perfect position to step up, says Bonifacio.
“We think we could be the next project, and the only purely antimony project that’s online in the next 12 to 18 months,” says Bonifacio.
‘All of that material at the surface that’s ready to be processed’
Bonifacio says NevGold began focusing on antimony roughly 18 months ago after identifying significant quantities of the mineral at its Limousine Butte project in Nevada.
The site was previously mined for gold in the early 1990s, but operators at the time ignored antimony because it was not considered economically important.
“They mined the material and only focused on processing the gold,” Bonifacio says.
“We are very fortunate because you have all of that material at the surface that’s ready to be processed,” he says.
NevGold’s initial testing on the site’s crushed leach pads yielded antimony grades up to 0.34 per cent and gold grades of 0.41 grams per tonne over 12.5 meters.
With metallurgical testing proving it can recover up to 92 per cent of the antimony directly from the waste piles, the company aims to release its first formal resource estimate by the end of June.
Why the U.S. suddenly cares
Antimony has become strategically important because of its role in military applications and industrial manufacturing.
“The U.S. was importing all of their antimony from global sources,” says Bonifacio.
“One of the key sources there was China.”
Now he says, NevGold has a lead part to play in the antimony vertical supply chain in the U.S.
“The global demand of antimony is around 130 to 140,000 tons per annum,” he says.
“The U.S. demand is around 30 to 40,000 tons.”
U.S. lawmakers are already fast tracking domestic projects, with The Permitting Council citing that “Antimony is a key component in the production of defense weaponry and energy technology,” making its local extraction an immediate federal priority.
“The U.S. never really looked at being self-reliant on minerals and their mineral security, and now it’s become a key focus,” he says.
He says his company stands out because it doesn’t have to wait.
“When you look at how long it will take to continue developing, permitting, and constructing potential mines, the other projects out there are at least four to six years away,” says Bonifacio.
He says his company is also expanding the rest of the project area and could be operational for up to two decades.
“This has bipartisan support,” Bonifacio says. “They know how important it is to have their own mineral sovereignty and security.”
‘The most important metal nobody knows about: ’ Canada sees an opportunity
The growing interest in antimony is creating significant opportunities for Canadian projects, as well as for Canada itself, which classified the metal as a critical mineral five years ago.
“There are no primary producers of antimony in North America,” says Jim Atkinson, the CEO of Antimony Resources, an exploration and development company focused exclusively on antimony, listed on the CSE.
Atkinson is a former chief geologist at the Lake George Antimony Mine in New Brunswick, which was once the only producing antimony mine in North America.
He points out that because China recently cut off exports, there is now virtually no antimony entering North America.
He describes antimony as “the most important metal nobody knows about.”
“Every piece of munition, every bullet, every piece of material that’s shot out of cannons has antimony in it,” he says.
Atkinson’s company is advancing the Bald Hill antimony project in New Brunswick and believes Canada has “tremendous opportunity” to play a larger role in North American supply.
While Canada has some antimony production through processing operations, Atkinson says current output remains small compared with demand.
“The trail smelter usually produces about 200 metric tons,” he says, referring to processing operations in British Columbia.
“When you get back and you think about the amount of antimony that was imported, 140,000 metric tons, there’s a tremendous supply gap there that needs to be filled.”
Racing to build supply
For NevGold, the next milestone is demonstrating how much antimony its Nevada project contains.
“It’s an extremely different situation than it was a couple years ago,” he says.
“We will have a role to play in the antimony vertical supply chain in the U.S.”
This article was first reported by BNNBloomberg
