Dart Mining chairman James Chirnside said: “The Company has long regarded antimony as a valuable commodity and is happy to see the increased recognition the critical mineral is now receiving. The company’s commitment to antimony exploration is well-documented, with the application over the extension of the Whroo, Redcastle and Costerfield mineralised trends well-advanced and sampling conducted in 2020 and 2023 returning positive antimony results.”

The company has an exploration license application over a prospective region of the Melbourne zone field, north of the Redcastle and Costerfield antimony resources. Following native title considerations, management remains confident the tenement will be granted – as early as October – and then field reconnaissance programs and sampling will begin in a bid to uncover the ground’s gold-antimony prospectivity.

China is the world’s biggest producer of antimony with a 56 per cent market share. The country’s decision to control exports of the critical mineral has been viewed, in part, as a tit-for-tat response to the increasingly confrontational stand by the United States’ Biden administration against China gaining an upper hand in the AI and chip manufacturing sectors.

It has also come as China is looking to safeguard its strategic reserves of antimony – a critical mineral used extensively in solar panels, military applications and electronics – given its significantly-reduced domestic production in recent years.

For all of the above reasons and an already surging demand for antimony, the commodity’s price is sitting at near all-time highs of US$24,000 (AU$35,600) per tonne.

Dart has also recently set its sights on its wider gold prospects and much further north than the frosty goldfields of Victoria it recently acquired the 118,000-ounce Triumph gold project in Queensland for $1 million in cash and $1 million in shares. Sitting 70km north-west of the 2.8 million-ounce Mt Rawdon mine and 80km south-east of the massive 8 million-ounce Mt Morgan mine, the immediate project area has a rich history, with gold first discovered there in 1871.

The project covers an interpreted intrusion-related system and sits primarily within the Norton Tonalite. With geology characterised by gold and silver mineralisation hosted in quartz-sulphide veins – and featuring substantial pyrite and arsenopyrite content – management believes the project has the potential to host both high-grade vein and large-scale, shear-hosted gold deposits.

Dart is adamant it will be able to add value to Triumph by using its wholly-owned drill rigs and says Queensland’s favourable prospectivity for million-ounce-plus gold deposits will provide an important strategic balance with its Victorian orogenic gold and now antimony projects.

And with antimony squarely in the spotlight of market investors, the company’s next moves in relation to the hot commodity will be an intriguing watch.

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