LKY starts drilling US rare earths project - 4 miles from $14BN MP Materials

Published 09-APR-2026 12:10 P.M.

4 min read

Shares Held: 4,890,278

Options Held: 0

Our US critical minerals Investment Locksley Resources (ASX: LKY) just started diamond drilling at its rare earth project in California - 6km away from $14BN MP Materials.

(source)

This is the first time LKY is drilling this part of its project - following up previous surface samples which returned grades up to 12.1% total rare earth oxides (TREO).

We Invested in LKY for its “back to front” antimony strategy, but the rare earths project is also interesting primarily because of that proximity to MP Materials.

LKY has four diamond holes planned across ~900m of strike with the program expected to take ~3 weeks to complete.

(source)

IF we see those 12.1% grades replicated at depth - then it could be game on for LKY’s rare earth prospect - especially when there is a known processing solution (MP Material’s project) so close by.

LKY now has two drilling programs running in parallel

This is LKY’s second active drill program.

LKY also has assay results pending from its Desert Antimony Mine (DAM) right now.

(source)

There, LKY is executing that “back to front” antimony strategy we mentioned earlier.

LKY has already done:

LKY Produced the first 100% US-sourced and refined antimony ingot in decades (October 2025)
Has a US$191M Letter of Interest from US EXIM Bank for project financing (November 2025)
Applied for US$43M in grant funding under the Defence Production Act Title III (December 2025)
Drilled at the Desert Antimony Mine - testing for extensions to the old workings (February 2026), assays now pending (source)
Has grab samples returning high-grade antimony (up to 16.9% Sb) confirming a north-south trend through the mine (March 2026)
LKY produced 99.5% purity antimony trioxide - meeting the key threshold for defence qualification (March 2026)

LKY even has a conceptual development plan outlined in a pretty solid video:

Watch: LKY Desert Antimony Mine Restart Plan

Now, LKY’s drilling to see how much antimony is sitting inside that old mine.

We note LKY has previously defined an exploration target of 772K-1.38M tonnes at 2.5-4.9% antimony for ~19,400 tonnes to 67,700 tonnes of antimony metal on the project. (source)

So if we can see some of that proven with drilling it could change the way the market views LKY’s project.

We think that the combination of downstream progress and drilling success could be what gets any funding deals over the line for LKY.

We note LKY has 2 funding applications pending:

(source)

What’s next for LKY?

🔄 Drilling results from Desert Antimony Mine

LKY is currently drilling 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 should start coming through soon - this is the big one.

(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)