antimony stocks back in favour -the australian

Antimony stocks back in favour as metal joins risk list
BY: PURE SPECULATION: ROBIN BROMBY From: The Australian October 24, 2011 12:00AM


ANTIMONY, you don't hear about it for years, then it's everywhere and is attracting some experienced players.

In last week's Commodity Watch, which appears in The Australian each Thursday, we noted the British Geological Survey had issued Risk List 2011, ranking the metals most likely to be in critical supply and sharing equal top spot were the platinum group metals: mercury, tungsten and antimony.

The metal's main use is as a fire retardant (textiles, plastics, paper and rubber) and as an alloy for batteries, solders, enamels and semiconductors.

In the 1990s, antimony from China was so cheap that many Western operations closed (as China managed to become dominant in rare earths and tungsten by flooding the world with cheap products) and it now supplies about three-quarters of world demand. But the present supply crunch has sent prices as high as $US14,200/tonne.


There's one mine in Victoria, operated by Canadians, and when it was owned by locally listed outfit, the former AGD Mining, its executive director was Ian Price, who these days is running Anchor Resources (AHR), now 96.7 per cent owned by China Shandong Jinshunda.

Surprisingly, it and its northern NSW antimony project will remain listed and the Chinese are looking at ways to widen the register (presumably without weakening control).

Just 50km away, Straits Resources (SRQ) has sold its mothballed Hillgrove antimony-gold project for $40 million and the initial public offering for the new owner, Hillgrove Mines, may kick off next week.

Managing director Greg Steemson was a founder of Sandfire Resources (SFR) and Allied Gold Mining (ALD) and worked for CRA in the 1970s.

The new owner won't be using Straits' troubled technology. Moreover, it is teaming up with a US-owned antimony mine in Mexico to set up their own supply chain independent of China, selling to Europe and the US.

Steemson, meanwhile, is casting about for other antimony projects.

PharmAust (PAA) does all right from its pharmaceutical business but much of the cashflow goes back into research and development. To diversify, PAA has picked up the old Kristov Dol antimony mine in Macedonia, which operated from 1970 to 1979 but was plagued by mismanagement and a great deal of antimony was left in the ground. Overlooking the project is geologist Greg Cunnold, who spent several years knocking around the Balkans, from Albania to Bulgaria.