Not since tungsten’s Cold War heyday has a niche metal assumed such outsized geopolitical weight, yet James “Jim” Atkinson insists that antimony’s moment has arrived—and that his small New Brunswick explorer is poised to answer Washington’s call. “Antimony is incredibly important to the U.S., not only to the military but to industries in general,” the Antimony Resources Corp. (CSE: ATMY | FSE: K8J0) chief executive told InvestorNews host Tracy Hughes. “In 2023, they imported 140,000 metric tons of antimony trioxide, and they don’t produce a single pound.”Antimony Resources, an exploration and development company devoted exclusively to the metal, is racing to fill that gap from its Bald Hill project, which sits equidistant from Fredericton, Saint John, and Sussex. Management—veterans of mine finance, discovery and operations—aims to build North America’s first standalone antimony hub at grades that dwarf foreign competitors. “The Department of Defense has said it will only buy antimony from North America,” Mr. Atkinson noted, contrasting Perpetua’s 0.4% Idaho ore with Bald Hill’s expected 4%—“ten times higher… in fact, we use 0.4% as our cutoff.”Fresh drill results underscore that boast. Hole BH-25-04 cut 7.4 meters averaging 4.17% antimony, including three massive stibnite zones assaying 28.8, 21.9, and 17.9%, while BH-25-03 returned 2.76% over 2.8 meters and a blistering 19% over 40 centimeters. “Stuff values and thicknesses like that allow you to quickly put together volumes,” he said, pointing out that a single assay from Hole 4 ranked among the top half-dozen ever reported in North America. Antimony’s visibility in core is another advantage: “When we see massive stibnite in over 70% of a hole, we suspect we’re going to get pretty good assays.”That confidence is matched by urgency as Beijing tightens its grip on supply. China, which once flooded global markets, began curbing exports last December. “I can see them cutting off all antimony exports,” Mr. Atkinson warned, calling the move “a very good economic weapon” and hinting that domestic Chinese mines—many “mom-and-pop operations”—face depletion even as local demand rises. Meanwhile, Australian concentrates still flow east for processing, underscoring North America’s dependence on foreign smelters.Against that backdrop, Bald Hill’s drills have already logged 3,100 meters with nearly 1,500 samples in the lab and more holes planned to extend mineralization beyond the known 300-meter strike. Assays should land “every three to four weeks,” Mr. Atkinson said, promising a steady news cycle through summer. He urged interested investors to watch for each batch—“Some of them will be better, some will be around the same”—and to remember the Pentagon’s peculiar demand driver: antimony trioxide, a flame retardant “apparently sprayed on every tent in the United States military.”Whether the tents or the bullets come first, the metal they rely on is scarce, strategic, and increasingly, Mr. Atkinson contends, about to be spelled Bald Hill.
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