An incredibly significant geological breakthrough at Trigg Minerals’ (ASX: TMG) flagship Antimony Canyon Project has seen the company discover a conductive core that is likely the high sulphidation mineralisation system’s hot fluid feeder zone, with inversions from recent geophysics confirming a litany of stacked, sub-horizontal mineralised layers 50m-100m beneath and along strike from historical mine workings that have produced at grades up to 3.6% Sb.
Many of these zones are completely untested, and are present in the prospects where TMG recently recorded channel samples up to 1.5m at 33.2%Sb. With this new interpretation having been validated by two independent expert consultancies, Dahrouge Geological Consulting USA and MineOro Explorations – the market is now eagerly awaiting TMG to drop to launch a drilling campaign that tests these layers and the motherload zone.
TMG is also preparing to build one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in the history of critical minerals in the USA – a state of the art net-zero antimony smelting facility that will be constructed in under two years, while TMG plans to imminently begin mining ore and producing antimony concentrate that will eventually supply its own refining plant.
The recent conceptual net-zero smelter study and plant design assessment with Metso, which was completed in less than two months, outlined a clear plan for a facility that will have annual production of 5,000 tons of 99.65% purity antimony ingot and trisulfide. At the latest US$55,000/t antimony price – that would be annual revenue of US$275 million (AUD$415 million), which would pose a massive amount of upside for TMG’s current AUD$220 million market cap.
One of the most important parts of the smelting facility is that it will be able to produce antimony trisulfide – the most critical forms of antimony because it is unsubstitutable for over 300 different types of munitions – making it the product that the USA is most starved of. While China introduced export controls in August last year, and officially banned the export of antimony to the US in December – the country has actually been unofficially sabotaging the procurement of trisulfide since at least 2021, when shipments to the United States were informally stopped.
These plans could not come at a better time, with many of China’s major smelters closing indefinitely due to an inability to source concentrate. 20 out of 30 Chinese antimony smelting operations have ceased production, and many of the ones remaining are operating at just 25% capacity.
You can read our overview of $17 billion market cap Metso (HE: METSO)’s Ausmelt TSL Process here, as well as all of our TMG coverage here – but its market-leading proprietary technology is trusted by the world’s biggest mining companies, including Rio Tinto and Anglo American, across 50 global smelting operations that process a myriad of commodities. TMG’s facility will require just 4,000 MWh of power per year, which will likely be drawn from renewable sources, and is modular – allowing rapid scaling to meet increasing antimony requirements.
The results from the recent controlled-source audio-frequency magnetotellurics (CSAMT) geophysical survey can be seen below, which displays the main feeder zone of hot mineralised fluids in relation the historical mine workings and other prospects at ACP:
Source: TMG
US Initiatives Swarming Critical Minerals
The Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) has been on a prolific critical minerals funding spree that has seen it begin to throw billions of dollars at mining and refining operations, the latest and highest profile being a non-binding offer of a US$2 billion loan to Perpetua Resources (NASDAQ: PPTA). While PPTA’s Stibnite mine is a superb looking gold project, it will only produce antimony as a byproduct that will supply 35% of the US demand for 6 years from 2028. The project won’t directly produce trisulfide, and will instead just send concentrate to United States Antimony Corp (NYSE: UAMY), who only has enough smelting capacity to meet 10% of the 24kt of antimony in the US consumed in 2024. TMG should only require around 5% of PPTA’s capital expenditure, and will be able to supply over 20% of US antimony demand – with the view of growing as needed and faster than any other company.
TMG has Washington-based Bernhardt Group running government and stakeholder engagement in the US, to seek out the same key fast tracked US government financing programs and permitting initiatives that PPTA utilised to gain over US$80 million during its pre-development phase, such as Exim Bank, DPA Title III and FAST-41. A favourite of many resources companies, including US$50 billion Barrick Gold Mining Corp, the Group is led by David Bernhardt, who is the former Secretary of the Interior under Donald Trump’s first Presidency – and now has unrivalled access to the upper echelons of American politics.
The antimony market has to go the same way as rare earths – interventionist policies and significant financing facilities to make it so the US can source all of its required supply between domestic operations and Western allies, while the private sector is insulated from volatile price action as well as supply and demand shocks from China.
If the US government can guarantee a floor price for NdPr of US$110/kg, compel JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs to finance a US$1 billion domestic 10ktpa rare earth magnet manufacturing facility, commit to buying the entire facility’s capacity for 10 years, while investing US$400 million directly into equity of American rare earths producer MP Materials (NYSE: MP) – then it can do the same for America’s near-term antimony producers like TMG.
China’s Antimony Muscle is Ripe for American Overpowering
In general, China has been extremely active in strengthening its global grasp on critical minerals supply from developing nations as well as domestically, having invested over US$57 billion in mining and refining infrastructure abroad over the past two decades through its belt and road initiative.
However, years of depleting reserves, declining grades and mine closures within China left its production capacity in a very fragile state, and no significant antimony investments were made abroad – creating a delicate pricing scenario highly susceptible to supply and demand shocks.
The antimony market has been under severe stress for many years, with global production of 178kt in 2011 collapsing to 106kt in 2023 – with around 87% of the mining market being controlled by China, Russia and Tajikistan the entire time. China accounted for 150kt (84%) in 2011, which had been cut down to one third the size at 62kt (58.5%) in 2023.
TMG’s ACP is located in the Fraser Institute’s number one ranked mining jurisdiction in the entire world – America’s Utah – the perfect place to become an epicentre of domestic antimony mining and refining. In preparation for an imminent drilling campaign, a channel sample and rock chip program yielded outstanding results, with assays reaching up to 33.2% Sb and multiple samples exceeding 10% Sb. The locations of the samples in the context of the project can be seen below:
Source: TMG
This project and the TMG team have all of the qualities investors look for when seeking out a company who can truly capitalise on a lucrative disruption in a commodity market. There are a whole litany of historically producing mines across the project, including the Nevada mine, which averaged 2.2% Sb with considerable high grade zones averaging 3.6% Sb, while Emma and Mammoth both averaged 1.5% Sb, with considerable high grade zones of 2.2% Sb and 2.4% Sb, respectively.
ACP’s gigantic JORC exploration target of 12.8 to 15.6Mt at 0.75% to 1.5% Sb, implying 96,000t to 234,000t of contained antimony, gives TMG the luxury of targeting the highest grade zones for initial production, such as the Nevada mine. With a modern exploration approach led by TMG’s CEO Andre Booyzen and antimony expert and geologist Chris Gregory, who together pioneered the success of Australia’s only antimony mine – the best parts of ACP are bound to be first in line for mining after the imminent drilling campaign the market is now keenly awaiting.
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational and marketing purposes only, and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to invest. All opinions expressed are our own. We may receive fees or other forms of compensation in connection with the publication of this content, and may own shares in any of the mentioned companies. Please do your own research and seek professional advice before making any investment decisions.