Nova Minerals Ltd (ASX:NVA, NASDAQ:NVA) has peeled back a new layer of critical minerals potential at the Estelle Gold and Critical Minerals Project in Alaska, highlighting an antimony-rich zone at the Stibium prospect with rock chips grading up to 56.7% in the latest round of reconnaissance work.
“As mentioned earlier this year, our field crews hit Stibium with intensity this season – collecting 80 rock samples and 180 soil samples,” Nova Minerals head of exploration Hans Hoffman said.
“Our primary objective was to delineate the anomaly from 2023. I feel like we located the heart of it but mineralisation likely extends to the north and the south.”
With 11 samples grading more than 30% antimony, the mineralised zone stretches over 800 metres by 400 metres at present, remaining open for further exploration to potentially expand the prospect’s footprint.
Highly sought-after mineral
Antimony is a metal with growing relevance in the international economy, as China has just this year restricted all exports of the critical mineral to the US.
It is used in a wide variety of future tech and defence technologies, including night vision, explosives and flares, nuclear weapons production, infrared sensors and precision optics.
As China is the world’s largest producer, accounting for about 54% of antimony production globally, governments around the world are moving to secure supply chains.
Nova is already in discussions with the US Department of Defense to provide potential grant funding to rapidly develop the antimony and critical mineral deposits across the Estelle Project.
Nova is also a member of the Defense Industrial Base Consortium (DIBC) through its subsidiary Alaska Range Resources (NYSE:RRC) LLC.
The organisation's goal is to minimise barriers for business to work with government, foster collaboration between academic, government and private sectors, and enable rapid research and access to innovative solutions.
Drill-ready prospect
“With these results, we begin to appreciate the potential size and tenor of the impressive antimony discovery at the Stibium prospect,” Nova Minerals CEO Christopher Gerteisen said.
“We also anxiously await the 2024 gold results which have previously delivered up to 12.7 g/t gold.
“These results show Stibium to be an exceptional high-grade antimony-gold drill-ready prospect that the company will prioritise 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, which already includes the high-grade RPM gold deposit and the bulk tonnage Korbel gold deposit.
“The company is now well advanced with its applications towards US government grant funding in pursuit of these efforts.”
The initial antimony samples taken at Stibium registered 60.5% and 2.1%. Results of note from the 2024 rock chip sampling program include:
- 56.7% antimony;
- 55.7% antimony;
- 54.8% antimony;
- 54.5% antimony;
- 46.2% antimony;
- 45.9% antimony; and
- 43.3% antimony.
Nova has taken 2,500 kilograms of bulk samples for metallurgical testing and is currently awaiting more soil samples for antimony exploration and rock and soil samples for gold at Stibium.
There are also results from regional exploration pending, particularly at the broader RPM deposit and Stoney prospect areas.