The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - December 6, 2024
Rock samples with grades as high as 56.7% antimony were collected from the Stibium prospect this year.
A sample collected from Stibium that averaged 45.9% antimony.
Nova Minerals' 2024 sampling expanded the known area of high-grade antimony at Stibium.
A sample collected from Styx averaging 54.1% antinomy.
Nova Minerals Ltd. Dec. 5 reported that 11 out of the 80 samples collected over a 400-by-800-meter area of Stibium contain more than 30% antimony, confirming the extent and high-grade nature of this drill-ready prospect on the company's Estelle gold-antimony project about 100 miles northwest of Anchorage, Alaska.
Nova Minerals' 2024 sampling expanded the known area of high-grade antimony at Stibium.
Discovered during a reconnaissance exploration program carried out across the 198-square-mile (514 square kilometers) Estelle property in 2023, Stibium encompasses a two-meter-wide vein with exceptionally high-grade antimony, along with strong precious metals mineralization. Samples collected from this prospect last year returned grades as high as 60.5% antimony, 12.7 grams per metric ton gold, and 1,600 g/t silver.
The Stibium antimony discovery comes at a time when the U.S. Department of Defense is looking to establish secure alternatives to China and Russia for this metalloid critical to national security. The need to establish domestic supplies became more urgent with China's Dec. 3 ban on exports of antimony to the United States.
There are currently no antimony-producing mines in the U.S., leaving American manufacturers and military reliant on imports. Considering that China, Tajikistan, and Russia control more than 80% of the global antimony supply, the supply options are limited for this metalloid used in ammunition, batteries, electronics, fireproofing compounds, specialty glass, and other products.
Seeing the potential to establish a small mine that could produce significant quantities of antimony due to the very high-grade mineralization, Stibium has been on DOD's radar for nearly a year, and a grant application submitted by Nova to advance a pilot-scale mine there likely gained a higher priority level following China's export ban.
The 2024 program at Stibium – which included the collection of 80 rock samples, 180 soil samples, and a 2,500-kilogram (4,510 pounds) bulk sample for metallurgical testing – is providing great insights into the potential of this prospect.
"Our primary objective was to delineate the anomaly from 2023. I feel like we located the heart of it, but mineralization likely extends to the north and the south," said Nova Minerals Head of Exploration Hans Hoffman.
The highest-grade rock samples collected from Stibium this year contain:
A sample collected from Stibium that averaged 45.9% antimony.
• 56.7% antimony.
• 55.7% antimony.
• 54.8% antimony.
• 54.5% antimony.
• 46.2% antimony.
• 45.9% antimony.
• 43.3% antimony.
"These results show Stibium to be an exceptional high-grade antimony-gold drill ready prospect that the company will prioritize moving forward and advance towards resource definition to continue to increase and prove-up the total resource inventory across the Estelle Gold and Critical Minerals Project," said Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen. "The company is now well advanced with its applications towards U.S. government grant funding in pursuit of these efforts."
Nova's 2024 critical minerals exploration at Estelle also included sampling at Styx, another exceptionally high-grade antimony discovery. Highlights from the sampling at Styx include:
A sample collected from Styx averaging 54.1% antinomy.
• 54.1% antimony.
• 39.1% antimony.
• 28% antimony.
• 20.7% antimony.
Nova crews collected 511 soil and 225 rock samples, as well as a 500-kilogram (1,100 pounds) bulk sample from Styx this year.
"We believe that plenty more remains as we look deeper into the Styx occurrence," said Hoffman.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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