In the Quarterly report, they mentioned they found Antimony.
I found this article below in Forbes magazine (I could not link it) that explains why it's valuable and alludes to why the price has more than doubled.
Many readers have likely never heard of antimony, but it is important to their lives, nevertheless. In fact, were it not for antimony produced here in the United States, the outcome of World War II might have turned out differently?
No, really, it could have. Antimony is a strategic critical mineral that is used in all manner of military applications, including the manufacture of armour piercing bullets, night vision goggles, infrared sensors, precision optics, laser sighting, explosive formulations, hardened lead for bullets and shrapnel, ammunition primers, tracer ammunition, nuclear weapons and production, tritium production, flares, military clothing, and communication equipment. It is the key element in the creation of tungsten steel and the hardening of lead bullets, two of its most crucial applications during WWII.
Prior to the build-up to the War, the United States was almost entirely dependent on China for its supply of antimony. When that supply was cut off by Japan, America had to find another source of this key mineral. Fortunately for the U.S. at that time, a gold mine in central Idaho called the Stibnite mine was able to step up production of the antimony that is an element in the mine’s ore and helped fill the void.
The Stibnite mine ended up producing fully 90% of America’s demand for antimony for the duration of the War and was key to producing 40% of the tungsten steel needed for the military effort. Following the War, output from the Stibnite mine gradually declined, and its operations were shut down entirely in 1997.
Today, the U.S. finds itself once again wholly reliant on other countries for its antimony needs, most heavily China and to a lesser extent, Russia. As Christopher Ecclestone, Mining Strategist at London-based Hallgarten & Company, said during a webinar this week, as recently as a few years ago, China produced as much as 80% of the world’s supply of antimony. But years of over-production of its key mines, along with lingering low commodity prices have reduced China’s share of global production to 53%.
However, several large producing nations shiptheir supplies to China for processing, meaning that the communist empire stillprocesses 80% of global supply, and thus commands its ultimate supply chain.Ecclestone said he believes Chinese supply is in rapid decline, and that theChinese government is currently rationing its own production. This helps toexplain a recent spike in the price for the metal, which has doubled over thelast 6 months.
Worse, Ecclestone believes that global demand for antimony inthe coming years “cannot be met from current supplies.” If true, this willimpact all of us in a variety of ways, because antimony is a crucial element infar more than just military applications.
For example, consider its usage in the high-tech sector, whereit is a key ingredient in semiconductors, circuit boards, electric switches,fluorescent lighting, high-quality clear glass, and lithium-ion batteries. Noantimony, no iPhones. No high-definition TVs. No modern kitchen appliances, allof which make use of digital circuitry. Oh, and that car you’re thinking aboutbuying? Sorry.
Now, consider this: There can be no “energy transition” without adequate supplies of antimony. That thick, heavy glassused in solar panels? It’s made with antimony. Those 300 to 700 foot-tallwindmills that sporadically produce electricity? Made with antimony. Antimonyis a key element in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries, as mentionedabove, but even more crucial is the fact that it is integral to the developmentof the next-generation liquid metal batteries that, as Ecclestone pointed outduring the webinar, hold the key to truly scalable energy storage for wind andsolar power.
Although Tesla CEO Elon Musk touts hiscompany’s lithium-ion technology as that key, Ecclestone disagrees, mainly becauselithium-ion batteries rapidly lose their charge, especially in unusually coldor hot temperatures. Liquid metal batteries are able to hold the charge putinto them over much longer periods of time and are far less impacted by severetemperatures. Thus, the development of this technology is key to the “energytransition” ever really taking place, and that cannot happen without a reliableand ample supply of antimony. As tensions between the U.S. and China continuerising, so do concerns about the ultimate source of that supply.
Obviously, the U.S. needs to develop a domestic supply of this critical mineral, but where will it come from? Ironically, the only potential domestic source of the metal currently being considered for development happens to be the very same Stibnite mine that served such a vital role during World War II.
There remains much gold to be mined at the Stibnite site, and that means a great deal of antimony to be mined along with it. Perpetua Resources, a company created a decade ago to restart production at Stibnite, is optimistic it can recover this critical resource over a period of about 12 years, and ultimately clean up and restore the area it occupies to pristine condition.
The company has spent the last decade in the planning phase of the project and is currently seeking approvals from the U.S. Forest Service under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Assuming the NEPA effort meets with success, Perpetua will spend up to a year seeking as many as 50 separate required permits, licenses, approvals and authorizations from federal, state and local regulatory bodies before work can finally begin on the project itself. If all goes as currently planned, the company tells me it anticipates first production of gold and antimony from the mine in the 2025–2026-time frame.
Notably, this project is considered one of the largest resources of antimony outside of the control of China, Russia and their allies. Perpetua anticipates a 12-year production time frame related to the currently known resource present at the mine site, and believes it will be able to produce, on average, about 35% of current U.S. antimony usage over the first six years of production. As you can see from the chart below, that does not include anticipated increased domestic antimony demand from the development of next-generation battery technology.
These percentages could increase should Perpetua discoveradditional reserves of gold and antimony as it goes through the mining process,a prospect the company considers to be entirely likely.
In 1977, then-President Jimmy Carter declared the fact that theUnited States was 33% dependent on imports of foreign oil to meet its needs tobe a national emergency. In light of that, it seems almost unbelievable thatthis country has allowed itself to become almost 100% dependent on imports of ametal integral to so many applications as antimony. Of course, the U.S. is alsoin a similar situation related to better-known critical minerals like lithium and cobalt,which are also key to the production of solar panels, wind turbines andlithium-ion batteries.
Given all the ongoing hype about renewable energy, electricvehicles and the seeming urgency around moving to them in the coming fewdecades, this seems a very odd way to manage such a massive envisioned “energytransition.” If that goal is to ever truly become reality in the U.S., thecountry must find a way to secure adequate supplies of these minerals byexploiting its own domestic reserves of them. Where antimony is concerned,Perpetua Resources at least has a plan to make a good start.
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