LKY hits antimony in all 8 holes from US project

Our US critical minerals Investment Locksley Resources (ASX: LKY | OTCQX: LKYRF) just delivered the first assays from its first drill program at the Desert Antimony Mine (DAM) in California.

First some context - LKY’s project produced antimony during WW1 and WW2 - At the time it was one of the highest grade known antimony occurrences in the US.

Antimony is on the US Critical Minerals List, and the US has effectively zero domestic supply and China dominates global antimony output, and has imposed export controls on the metal.

LKY has already produced 99.5% antimony trioxide from its US project material, the first ASX company to do so.

So LKY is now running a parallel program of building the upstream resource (today’s drilling) AND the downstream processing capability (the antimony trioxide work).

All of that comes together in LKY’s mine restart strategy which is pretty well summarised in the following video: Watch: LKY Desert Antimony Mine Restart Plan

Today’s drill results are from the first program LKY’s done on the project with the overarching goal of converting some of the project's existing JORC exploration target into resources.

This exploration target is 772k-1.38M tonnes at 2.5-4.9% antimony for ~19,400 tonnes to 67,700 tonnes of antimony metal. (source)

The resources would then form the basis for a restart plan…

And today, LKY hit antimony in all eight of the holes drilled below the old workings, including a 0.4m intercept with grades of ~33.51% antimony:

(source)

Assay results are now in from 6 of those 8 holes, with the remaining 2 still being processed.

Here is where the hits sit relative to the old workings from the project:

(source)

LKY also confirmed in today’s announcement that its rare earths focused drill program had also been completed.

LKY drilled a total of four holes across ~434m and said assays were expected in the coming weeks.

The results from that drilling should be interesting especially given LKY’s ground sits INSIDE ~$14BN MP Material’s blocks at their flagship Mountain Pass project:

(source)

What we want to see next from LKY

🔄 Drilling results from Desert Antimony Mine

LKY has drilled at DAM - targeting extensions to the old workings to the north and south.

We want to see if LKY can prove that the mine extends over the 1.2km of strike mapped earlier in the year.

Results from 6 of the 8 antimony holes have been received with the 2 remaining due soon and then the rare earths results to follow in coming weeks.

(source)

🔲 Product qualification with defence and industrial partners

LKY has now produced both antimony ingots and 99.5% antimony trioxide from its Mojave Project ore. The next step is getting this product qualified with potential customers - metals traders, defence supply chain participants, and government agencies.

Bench-scale validation of DES processing and economic assessment is the next milestone for the Rice University program.

LKY has signed partnership agreements with Rice University, Columbia University and Hazen Research.

Broadly, we want to see LKY progress the following across the three partnerships:

• Pilot plant design and metallurgical test work (Hazen and Rice)
• Production of representative samples for US industrial and defence qualification (Hazen)
• Commercial analysis and process optimisation (Hazen and Rice)
• Rare earth processing tech development (being done with Columbia University)

🔲 US government funding decisions

LKY has a US$191M LOI from US EXIM and a US$43M DPA Title III application in play. (source)

With the Pentagon actively deploying capital into antimony projects, we think LKY could be in conversation the next time funding goes out.

🔲 Rare earths drilling at El Campo

LKY got drilling underway last month at this project too.

LKY had four diamond holes planned across ~900m of strike with the program now complete, LKY confirmed today that results for this are “expected in the coming weeks”. (source)