3 September 2024
Felix Gold Ltd (ASX: FXG), the largest minerals claim owner in Alaska’s esteemed Fairbanks Gold Mining District, has announced assay results confirming high-grade discoveries of one of the US’s and European Union’s most critical minerals – antimony.
Felix Gold Ltd (ASX: FXG), the largest minerals claim owner in Alaska’s esteemed Fairbanks Gold Mining District, has announced assay results confirming high-grade discoveries of one of the US’s and European Union’s most critical minerals – antimony.
The US Government, with its FY23 military budget of US$857 billion, ranks antimony highly for its multiple military applications, including but not limited to the manufacture of armour piercing bullets, laser sighting, infrared sensors, military clothing and communication equipment.
An initial four holes at the company’s NW Array Prospect, with the Treasure Creek project area, yielded ‘significant’ antimony findings in the form of stibnite (Sb), the most common antimony mineral ore.
Some results included 1.5m @ >5.0% Sb from 24.4m, 1.5m @ >5.0% Sb from 38.1m, 1.5m @ >5.0% Sb from 54.8m and 1.5m @ >5.0% Sb from 10.7m. Felix Gold also notes that 5% is the upper limit for the laboratory testing of Sb.
“These occurrences represent a significant development for the company as antimony is listed as a critical mineral to US economic and national security…a list which also includes cobalt, uranium and rare earths,” Felix Managing Director and CEO, Anthony Reilly said.
“Our technical team is now assessing the potential scale of this discovery and the additional value that can be added to the project via the opportunity to supply a critical mineral to the US domestic market.”
Antimony’s leading use is as a fire retardant in safety equipment and household goods. The element also imparts strength, hardness, and corrosion resistance to industrial alloys, including those used in lead-acid storage batteries.
The European Union is 100% reliant on imports for its antimony needs and, historically, stockpiling of the mineral is known to occur parallel with uncertainty around geo-political conflicts, such as World War 1, World War 2, the Korean War and the current Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Felix Gold’s Alaska prospects
Beside being recognised as a primary location for antimony resources, Alaska is home to the mining infrastructure-rich Fairbanks Gold Mining District within the world-class Tintina Gold Province. Though largely underexplored, the region currently hosts multiple 10+Moz gold deposits.
Felix primarily operates as a gold exploration business and aims to establish a low capex/opex ore supply gold resource at its Fairbanks-housed Treasure Creek Project. The company believes that the project could potentially supply additional ore to nearby Kinross Gold’s Fort Knox tier-1 gold mine with mineral reserves grade at 0.37 g/t gold (Au).
Treasure Creek’s NW Array Prospect has a JORC exploration target of up to 3.6Moz gold. Felix is aiming to delineate a maiden resource during Q4 this calendar year after 2022’s exploration success, which included 90m @ 1.2g/t Au from 32m, including 60m @ 1.6g/t Au from 42m.
Notably, Felix is hitting grades higher than the Fort Knox mine’s head grade of 0.43g/t-0.65g/t Au, which produced 291,248oz Au equivalent in 2022. The recent confirmation of antimony in the gold system provides a potential bonus by-product.
The Scrafford Mine, which is on Felix’s tenure and approximately 2km east of the NW Array, was the the second largest producer of antimony in Alaska during intermittent operation between 1915 and 1977 – recovering one million kilograms of stibnite with the average grade of 38-56% antimony.
Felix is led by a Board and management team with extensive investment banking, mineral exploration and commercial mining experience, including MD and CEO Anthony Reilly who has held several executive and management roles with leading business within mineral exploration and development, and global finance.
Felix Gold will be holding an investor briefing with CEO Anthony Reilly on Friday, 21st July at 1pm (AEST) to discuss the antimony assay results and provide a broader company update. Click here to book in or request the replay.
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