Warriedar Resources (ASX:WA8) has declared a maiden resource estimate for the Ricciardo deposit in Western Australia, which the company says represents the “largest open-pit antimony resource in Australia, on a granted mining lease”.
Ricciardo’s maiden antimony resource contains 12.2 million tonnes @ 0.5% antimony for 60,300 tonnes of contained antimony.
As a result, the deposit’s total resource stands at 1.96 million ounces of gold equivalent at 2.5 grams per tonne.
Warriedar notes that the resource also includes an open-pit mineral resource of 11.4 million tonnes @ 3.3g/t gold equivalent containing 56,800 tonnes of antimony and 331,000 ounces of gold — with 37% of the antimony in the higher confidence measured and indicated categories.
CEO Amanda Buckingham says the next phase of work launching at the Golden Range Project will be antimony-focused drilling, alongside ongoing metallurgical testwork.
“We will undertake this work in parallel with our ongoing primary focus, which is further growing the existing gold resources at Golden Range via targeted extensional and new discovery drilling through 2025 within the highly prospective 25km-long Golden Corridor,” Buckingham says.
Buckingham adds that the maiden resource has been conducted against a backdrop of surging antimony prices, as the supply constraints and geopolitical dynamics in the market come into sharp focus globally.
According to Carbon Credits, antimony prices surged in April 2024 due to a severe supply shortage. By the end of May 2024, antimony was sitting around US$26,575 ($41,449) per tonne and climbed even further to roughly US$35,000 per tonne in November.
As Mining.com.au previously reported, antimony’s price surged as high as US$60,000 per tonne in mid-April, amid the tariffs and trade war that erupted between the US and China.
The demand for antimony is driven by its increasing industrial use and China’s dominance in production. China is the leading antimony producer, accounting for 48% of global production and 63% of US imports, as reported by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Warriedar Resources is a gold, copper, and antimony explorer with a resource base of more than 2.3 million ounces of gold across Western Australia and Nevada, US.
Write to Aaliyah Rogan at Mining.com.au
Images: Warriedar Resources
