Surprise Chinese Restrictions
In August 2024, China announced limits to antimony exports “in the name of national security”. This brought a lot of attention to a rarely discussed metal, despite its importance in the modern world. The ban, effective from the 15th of September, is also very extensive, including:
- 6 kinds of antimony-related products, including antimony ore, antimony metals, and antimony oxide.
- The export of gold-antimony smelting and separation technology without permission.
This follows previous restrictions on critical minerals exports by China, like the export of technology to make rare earth magnets in December 2023. The country has also reduced exports of materials used by the semiconductor and battery industries, such as graphite products, gallium, and germanium.
You can read more about the impact of China’s restriction on antimony exports in this article from the CSIS (Center for Strategic & International Studies), including the strategic importance of antimony for the US defense industry.
In parallel, the prices of antimony are hitting all-time highs. So, investors might benefit from paying attention to this long-forgotten metal, which is much less discussed than iron, copper, lithium, or uranium.
Where Does Antimony Come From?
Antimony is a pure metal element naturally found in many mineral ores. It belongs to the vanadium family and shares characteristics with lead, arsenic, and bismuth.
Antimony is sometimes toxic (depending on its chemical form) as well as carcinogenic (causing cancer).
Source: Chemistry Learner
It is an element known since the dawn of civilization, with for example a mention of it in a 1600 BC Egyptian papyrus for its use as mascara (kohl), or a 5000-year-old vase made of pure antimony is shown in the Louvre museum.
Most commonly, it is found alongside gold or silver deposits and is commercially produced from stibnite or antimony trisulfide, which is then reduced with scrap iron. Antimony oxide is then reduced with carbon.
Source: Nihon Seiko
Antimony is very much a metal produced only out of Eastern countries, with the top producers being in order: China (48% of global production), Tajikistan (25%), Turkey, Burma, Russia, Bolivia, and then only Australia (3%).
The US used to cover most of its domestic needs through the production of the Stibnite gold mine, but it was closed in the 1990s following a tightening of environmental regulations.
By reserves, the major antimony-rich countries are China, Russia, Bolivia and Kyrgyzstan.
Source: Mining.com
Why Is Antimony Important?
Antimony has evolved over time from a metal used occasionally in ancient medicine and cosmetics into a key metal of modern technology.
It is a $1.08B market in 2024, expected to grow at 6.5% until 2032, with many different applications. In most of these applications, antimony is a critical component, either very hard or impossible to substitute with another element.
In addition, these applications tend to be critical to safety or performance, making them essential to the final product operating as intended.
Source: Fortune
Molds And Casing
A key feature of antimony is that it is one of the rare elements that expands on cooling (instead of the opposite). This allows for antimony to function as an excellent material when used for molds and casings, as they will retain shapes and fine details when cooling.
Hardening Alloys
In alloys, the addition of antimony increases the hardness of concurrent metals like lead and tin. This turns antimony into a key material in many applications, including many strategic or high-tech ones.
Ammunitions
A likely reason for the sudden restrictions on Chinese exports is the role played by antimony in ammunition production.
The hardening effect that antimony has on many metals makes it a key component of armor-piercing ammunition and high-quality bullets. This is because it is critical in the production of tungsten steel and hardened lead bullets (3-6% antimony).
This makes antimony a strong complement to tungsten in the category of military-critical metals. You can read more about tungsten, how its production out of China and Russia has long been neglected, as well as how to invest in it in our dedicated article “Tungsten – The Secret High-Tech Metal”.
Another function of antimony in ammunition is when in metallic form, it can be used to help explosive trigger properly. This makes it a key component of every firearm cartridge, in grenade fuses and artillery shells, even if it makes only 1% of the total.
Source: Cartridge collectors
The world has seen a massive uptick in demand for ammunition with the start of the war in Ukraine, as well as the escalating conflict in the Middle East (Yemen & Gaza, but maybe also Syria & Lebanon, or even Iraq & Iran).
So, with the whole world looking to replenish stockpiles of ammo, or increase them, we can expect that antimony will be in high demand for this application for the whole decade to come.
Energy
Wind / Mechanical Components
The hardening of metal by antimony is very useful in gear and ball bearings. This makes it a key material in many industrial processes, of which a very quickly growing one is the mechanical parts of wind turbines.
With wind turbine constructions expected to keep growing quickly (see “Can Wind Power The World?“), this makes antimony a critical mineral for the green energy revolution.
It will also be, together with tungsten, an essential mineral for any tentative re-industrialization of the US and the Western powers.
Solar
The photovoltaic sector currently consumes 50,000 tons of antimony per year. It is used there as a clarifying agent in photovoltaic glass.
“With a growth rate of 30% year on year, the demand for antimony in the photovoltaic industry has changed the supply-demand balance of the antimony industry.”
“The use of antimony trioxide as a clarifying agent in photovoltaic glass is a developing trend, and it is expected to maintain rapid growth in the coming years.”
Kang Dongsheng, chairman of major Chinese antimony producer Hsikwangshan Twinkling Star Co Ltd
Antimony selenide (Sb2Se3) could also be used as a solar absorber in “self-healing” solar panels.
Meanwhile, antimony trisulfide is considered for integration into the solar cell itself, with the goal of creating energy conversion efficiency as high as 31.15%.
As solar panels of various designs, most of them using glass to protect the photovoltaic cells, are expected to become the dominant form of renewable energy together with wind, the trend of green energy replacing fossil fuels is strong support for increasing demand for antimony.
Nuclear
Antimony is used in nuclear reactors as bearing or sealing material for coolant pumps.
Antimony is also used in cold-pressed antimony-beryllium (Sb-Be) pellets for nuclear start-up rod assemblies, which are used to initiate nuclear reactions.
This is also true for use in SMRs (Small Modular Reactors), often considered as the future of the nuclear industry.
So, while less likely to lead to massive antimony demand, like in the case of solar and wind power generation, if our future energy mix relies on nuclear as well, this would be positive for antimony demand as well.
Batteries
Antimony is used in grid alloys in lead batteries for automobile batteries.
A new type of battery, a molten metal battery based on calcium-antimony chemistry, was touted as a solution to a grid-scale battery system.
The project is, however, experiencing setbacks with the bankruptcy of battery developer Ambri, following a failed capital raise.
This, however, does not change the technical value of metal liquid batteries to green the power grid, nor has it yet been decided what the acquirer of Ambri’s IP will do with the technology.
Semiconductors, Infrared-Sensors & Night Vision
Another application of antimony is in the semiconductor industry.
III-V semiconductors containing antimony can cover a broad range of energies in the near and mid-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
This makes them useful for infrared detectors and gas-sensing emitters, which are in turn key to light-detection and ranging (LiDAR) detectors used in autonomous vehicles, but also military and civilian night vision systems.
It is also to become increasingly in demand due to the growing range of applications of drones, autonomous vehicles, and machine vision using either infrared sensors, LiDAR and radar.
Infrared sensor producer Phlux Technology uses antimony in infrared sensing. The use of antimony provides 10 times more sensitivity and 50pc more range to sensors compared to silicon-based sensors, improving their performance in radar systems while reducing the cost of manufacturing.
Viewpoint: Antimony use likely in new technologies – Argus Media
Antimony might even be useful in other computing applications, as illustrated by Quantimony’s products, creating quantum semiconductors with this element.
Lastly, it is used in small amounts for plenty of other electrical and electronic devices, like circuit boards, electric switches, fluorescent lighting, etc.
Flame Retardant
When combined with a halogen – fluorine, chlorine, bromine, or iodine – antimony suppresses the spread of flames.
A large amount of antimony is currently used in this role as a flame retardant in fabrics and other materials like plastics and rubber.
This used to be a very important function during WW2, with an antimony-based fireproofing compound that was applied to tents and vehicle covers.
“Antimony is also vital to our military’s effectiveness and has been since it was labeled as crucial to the war effort during World War II,”
U.S. Army Major General James “Spider” Marks
Investing In Antimony
When it comes to antimony, the metal has been mostly ignored by Western investors for several decades.
So now that people have realized its strategic importance (quite late), there could be a rush to fund new projects out of China, its allies, and non-Western countries.
This would also not be unprecedented, as the very same thing happened in WW2.
Prior to the buildup 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.
Forbes
In August 2024, the antimony price rose to all-time highs above $22,000 a metric ton, having roughly doubled since the start of the year due to a global deficit of the metal (around 10,000 tons deficit on 83,000 tons global production) and concern about geopolitics.
You can invest in antimony-related companies through many brokers, and you can find here, on securities.io, our recommendations for the best brokers in the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK, as well as many other countries.
If you are not interested in picking specific antimony-related companies, you can also look into ETFs like VanEck Rare Earth and Strategic Metals ETF (REMX) which will provide a more diversified exposure to capitalize on the mining industry.
Or you can read our dedicated article about “Tungsten – The Secret High-Tech Metal“, which presents similar opportunities and conditions of long neglect followed by urgent renewed geopolitical importance.
Antimony Companies
1. Perpetua Resources Corp
Perpetua is a mining company looking to re-develop in the US the Stibnite gold project in Idaho, previously the source of 90% of US antimony.
The current demand is much higher, and it is expected to cover around 35% of the modern US demand.
Because of the urgency for domestic antimony production, Perpetua has received a letter of interest from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) for a potential $1.8B in debt financing to push the project forward quickly.
This would fall under EXIM’s Make More in America initiative, aiming at revitalizing American manufacturing.
While antimony is the core of the project rationale, it would also produce a lot of gold, with the largest reserves among all US independent gold projects.
Source: Perpetua
Thanks to high-grade ore, it would also have an All-in Sustaining Costs (AISC) of only $636/ounce, while gold prices reached all-time highs above the historical $2,500/ounce threshold.
Source: Perpetua
Like all mining projects, even an accelerated timeline will require many years for the project to get going.
The company will also implement modern mining practices to solve the environmental issues that led to the closing of the mine in the first place. This includes supporting the fishing and wildlife population, reforestation, and addressing the historical impact of previous mining operations.
Currently, the company envisions permitting to start in 2025, with commercial operation starting in 2028 at the earliest.
Source: Perpetua
Perpetua is currently the most important antimony project in the USA. This explains its accelerated permitting and easy financing, usually the 2 problems on which junior mining projects can die.
It could also prove to be a very profitable gold mining operation, which would prove highly rewarding for its shareholders.
In both the case of antimony and gold production, it is likely that Perpetua profits will be tightly linked to geopolitical turmoil, making it a potentially interesting addition to a portfolio to manage volatility driven by international tensions.
2. Lavrotto Resources (LRV.AX)
Lavrotto is a junior mining company operating in Australia and New Zealand, producing copper, gold, antimony, cobalt, PGE, and lithium.
It owns one of the world’s top 10 largest antimony deposits, mixed with gold resources, the Hillgrove deposit, north of Sydney. The mine already exists and needs extra investment to restart, but this makes it less risky than an entirely new project for most junior miners.
It expects its All-in Sustaining Costs (AISC) for the Hillgrove project to be around $820 /ounce, with production to restart by 2026.
Source: Larvotto
The other 3 projects of Lavrotto (Eyre, Mt Isa, and Ohakuri) are all in the exploration stage (determining the existing resources and discussing permitting with the national administration).
Thanks to its close timeline to production for the restart of the Hillgrove mine, Lavrotto could be in an excellent position to benefit from the antimony restriction enacted by China.
Australia is also shaping to become a key part of the Western alliance to alleviate the dependency on Chinese imports for key minerals like uranium, lithium, rare earth, antimony, etc.