Antimony has proven to be the flavour of the month (well, two months now) when it comes to hard rock miners following export bans for the critical mineral from China.

While it’s mainly used in fire retardant materials, the metal also has defence and tech applications which, now that China is holding onto its own supplies (the country is no longer the world’s top supplier,) has left Western-based companies scrambling to find it.

The somewhat obscure metal often coincides with silver and lead but it’s also present on-site many gold projects.

There’s three companies out with antimony news on Thursday – let’s dive in.

Locksley Resources (ASX:LKY)

Locksley Resources was up +62.5% in the first hour of trades on Thursday as it reported rock chip samples coming in at 11.2% antimony.

Rock chips do not guarantee that mineralisation lies underground and given their nature – observable while walking through on-foot, which means shiny – but markets typically don’t care about that.

Driving risk-on sentiment is that Locksley’s Mojave Project boasts a former antimony mine in the North Block. “High-grade antimony is represented by historic underground mine workings on quartz-stibnite veins,” Locksley wrote on Thursday.

Locksley has a market cap of $5.7M; its YTD returns are up +21.8%. Shares at 3.9cps.

Critical Resources (ASX:CRR)

Critical Resources was up +14.3% in the first hour of trades on Thursday as it reckons there’s antimony on-site its Halls Peak project following a review of past data.

“Open File Records, Mineral Deposit Data Sheets, of the Geological Survey of New South Wales indicate multiple Antimony showings within the Halls Peak Project including the Mayview Homestead Stibnite prospect, situated ~2.7km east of Larvotto Resources Ltd’s (“LRV”) Hillgrove Antimony-Gold Project,” Critical wrote on Thursday.

In the name of further shoring up confidence in the data, the company’s geotech team will now kick off an exploration run sniffing after what the company believes are high-quality antimony targets.

Critical has a market cap of $21.3M; its YTD returns are down -42.8%. Shares at 1.2cps.

Novo Resources (NVO)

Highly illiquid Novo Resources was flat in the first hour of trade on Thursday, after it too announced it reckons there’s antimony on-site its landholdings – following a review of historical data.

Two target areas are of interest to geotechs at this current time – a prospect called Sherlock Crossing, and another called Southeast Wyloo. An antimony mine is present at Sherlock Crossing (first discovered in 1906) and operated up until 1916.

Novo collected rockchips at Sherlock in 2022, but antimony grades are low. Southeast Wyloo, meanwhile, includes two “2km strike high order antimony stream sediment anomalies.” Rock chip samples from that area came in at 0.4% antimony.

Novo has a market cap of $11M; its YTD returns are down -47.9%. Shares at 9.9cps.