LKY to start engineering studies for its antimony project in California, USA

Our US critical minerals Investment Locksley Resources (ASX: LKY) has just kicked off an expression of interest process with engineering firms for its Antimony project in California.

LKY is basically looking for a US engineering company to lead the design for a fully developed plant at its Desert Antimony Mine.

The DAM was previously in production during WW1 and WW2 producing between 100 and 1000 tonnes of antimony (source), it was one of the highest grade known antimony occurrences in the US.

Now, LKY is putting together a plan to get the project back into production.

(here is a really good video summary of the development plan - it's a really good 3 minute watch to get a feel for what LKY is aiming to do with the project)

Locksley Resources - Desert Antimony Processing Facility

LKY’s Desert Antimony Mine (DAM) sits next door to $15BN MP Materials.

LKY already has an exploration target on the project of 772K - 1.38M tonnes at 2.5 - 4.9% antimony for ~19,400 tonnes to 67,700 tonnes of antimony metal.

And a development plan to get the old 4-leveled mine redeveloped.

(Source)

LKY also received a letter of interest from the US Export Import Bank (EXIM) for the project for a total of US$191M… (Source)

(Source)

At a very high level - LKY is going for speed - trying to get a previously antimony producing asset back into production as quickly as possible.

LKY’s already shown ore from the project can be processed into a final end product - here is that antimony ingot LKY produced (the first US sourced, US refined antimony ingot produced in decades):

(Source)

Now, LKY is looking to get the funding in place to get the project developed…

LKY just closed a “US led” $17M placement and said in today’s announcement that the company had over $20M in cash in the bank…

We also listened into a webinar on Tuesday with CEO Kerrie Matthews (the recording is here) - where she explicitly mentioned LKY had lodged a funding application through the Defense Production Act Title III for US$43M:

(Source)

We think that funding (if it ends up coming in for LKY) could be a material catalyst for LKY’s share price - alongside the upcoming drill programs.

What’s next for LKY?

Drilling (this quarter) 🔄

LKY expects to bee drilling its project very soon. (Source)

First will be the rare earth targets to the south (that sit within MP Material’s ground package).

There, LKY will be testing areas where previous rock chip sampling returned grades as high as ~6.87% TREO (rare earths) - here is where those targets sit.

Then straight after that round of drilling, LKY will be drilling the antimony targets to the north (where the old Desert Antimony Mine sits):

(Source)

We are especially looking forward to seeing if LKY can prove whether or not its Desert Antimony Mine extends over the entire 1.2km of strike mapped earlier in the year…

(Source)

Updates on LKY’s processing tech partnerships 🔄

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

With Rice the next stage for this partnership will be to secure a larger licence deal over whatever technology is developed from the R&D agreement.

This will take some time to work out the IP sharing and mutual development of the technology

LKY also recently signed a MOU to develop for processing of its antimony ore with Hazen research.

Hazen Research is a Colorado based R&D firm with 55+ years’ experience. They can provide global laboratory, pilot plant, and analytical services, specialising in developing processing and refining solutions for base and critical minerals.

LKY has now also signed an agreement with Columbia University.

This agreement is focused on the REE processing side.

Between the three partners, LKY is working on:

• Pilot plant design and metallurgical test work
• Production of representative samples for US industrial and defence qualification
• Commercial analysis and process optimisation