There's Neal Dingmann. I'm a research analyst here at William Blair that covers the U.S. Critical Minerals and Rare Earth group. As always, you can look at williamblair.com for all our potential disclosures, conflicts, all that sort of thing. Today, we're pleased to have Jonathan Miller, IR, Gary Evans, CEO founder of United States Antimony. Gentlemen, Gary and I have known each other longer probably than we want to admit, probably 20-plus years through the traditional energy and now into this group. Again, as we were talking about at dinner last night, there's a lot of things to go over today. Again, obviously, antimony with the concern of what's going on in the nation about that. Hopefully people have seen very recently they just did even a tungsten feasibility study that came out to be several billion dollars.
Gary, if you would obviously take us through the story. I think a lot of people here in the audience are probably a bit new with it. I just think again, so many things going on both with the government and just with other groups out there. I'll turn it over to you.
Thanks, Neal. Thank you all for listening to our story. As Neal mentioned, this is an old company. Been around 55 years and been publicly traded since 2012. I took it over about three years ago, just as a board member. Came on as independent board member, and one thing led to another. We had a lot of problems. The stock at that time was $0.20 a share, and market cap was $20 million. Everything that we're going to talk about today has really been done post three years ago. Entirely new board, entirely new management team, and completely new direction. When I came on board, the first thing I was doing was trying to fix the problem. They had some great legacy assets but were in really crappy shape.
As we were fixing things was when China decided in September of 2024 to cut off all antimony shipments to all countries in the world, including U.S. Our United States Department of Defense at that time, what it was called, was getting all their antimony from China. My phone started ringing off the hook because we are the only antimony smelter in the U.S. We're the only one in Mexico, which makes us the only two in North America. China has got this 100-year plan that they were working on and had gone around the world and tied up most of the antimony mines, most of the processing. Controlled 85% of antimony worldwide and decided we don't want to give the U.S. or any other country our antimony anymore. We became pretty important to the Department of War. Houston, we have a problem.
I entertained three groups from the Department of War out at our facilities. Long story short, we ended up signing a $245 million contract to provide what's called antimony ingots, which think of it as a gold bar. It's an antimony bar. Weighs 50 pounds. Is serial stamped and put on a pallet and shrink-wrapped and sent to the military. That contract we are just now delivering our first antimony shipments to the government as of May. We also won a $37 million grant, which was just a grant to help us expand our facility faster, which is the facility in Thompson Falls, Montana that is complete. We just fired up our first furnaces over the last week. That's where we kind of are. The idea is that we want to become a much bigger producer of antimony products.
We make seven different products of antimony. The government has never been a customer of ours until this past month. That is causing some significant explosive growth. Where do we get antimony? We've historically gotten it from foreign sources, and those are the countries of Australia, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, Chad. We have now homed in on a couple countries that have the higher quality antimony. We started also mining it ourselves last year. We opened up the mine there in Montana called Stibnite Hill and got a lot of antimony off the mine. We're mining back there again today. We have to shut down during the winter. We leased 30,000 acres up in the state of Alaska, which the state of Alaska historically has been the antimony source for the United States in the Korean War, Vietnam War, and World War I.
We have four different areas of Alaska that we're actively mining right now. When I say mining, what we're really doing is we have geologists out there on the ground looking for antimony deposits, and then we have equipment that basically digs trenches, and we start digging up the antimony. It's typically less than eight feet from the surface. It's all open pit. We will be eventually mining underground, but today it's all open pit. What has happened with antimony prices since China did what they did in September of 2024. Prices historically have been $5 or less per pound, and that's what drove most antimony companies out of business. I give the founder of this company credit. He kept the company alive when others could not survive. When China cut us off, it went from $5 a pound to over $30 a pound.
It's hanging around $17-$20 a pound today. We want to be mining it ourselves. We're the only company in the world outside of China and Russia that is a fully integrated antimony company. What does that mean? We mine it. We have midstream, which is the processing, where we take concentrate and try to make it, instead of a 10% of the rock, it's become 60%-70% of the rock, because that's where we have to be to be able to get it into our furnaces in Thompson Falls to make military-grade material. Military grade is 99.7% antimony, that's what we have to get to to fulfill our government contracts. To give you an idea of how this has all affected our revenue growth, the company, when I took over three years ago, the first year, we had $8 million of revenues.
We doubled that the second year to $15. Last year, we did $39, just under $40 million of revenues. This year, we're projected to do $125. That gives you an idea of how fast things are going. We're trying our best to fulfill for the government somewhere between $75 million-$95 million of their $240 million contract this year. That new smelter that came online a few weeks ago is really important to meet that goal. Now, we're not only just an antimony company. We made a decision about a year ago to also get involved in tungsten and cobalt. I bought a tungsten property up in Canada, Sudbury area of Ontario, for $5 million. That's the one that Neal was alluding to. We have a resource report initiated and filed with the SEC that shows future revenues of $4.7 billion.
If we ran those numbers today with where tungsten prices are today, that number is $9 billion.
What's your market cap?
Yeah. Yeah. Our market cap's not quite that. People go, "Oh, you guys are crazy. You think you can be a tungsten player, too?" Well, guess what? We are actually doing bulk sampling, which means that we are taking material, going to the labs. We already have got a contract to process the material in a midstream facility there in Sudbury, and we'll be moving the finished product to a military site in the Northeast U.S. that I can't disclose. What is tungsten needed for? Tungsten is the second hardest mineral behind diamonds. It is used in tanks. It's used in submarines and is also not mined in North America. Not only are we the first antimony company to be mining in North America, we'll be the first tungsten company to be mined in North America beginning this year. We're very excited about that.
We're also involved in a third mineral called cobalt. Cobalt predominantly comes from the country of Congo, and it's controlled mostly by China, again, surprise. Congo is kicking China out of the country, and we have got a cobalt mine up in Ontario, about 50 miles from our tungsten mine, and we're negotiating to buy actually a refinery right now. We hope to be fully integrated in these other critical minerals just like we are in antimony. All of this has been done in conjunction with discussions with the government. Let's talk about government grants and that. We currently have applications, four different government grant applications, some with the Department of War, some with the Department of Energy. They total about $245 million. We should be hearing about some of those activities. It's to fund our tungsten play. It's to fund a play.
Let's talk about Hydromet. We announced about 90 days ago a joint venture with another public New York Stock Exchange company called Americas Gold & Silver, symbol is USAS, and their company is a silver miner in Idaho. They have three mines there. Their finished product or what they're mining out of that mine is copper, silver, and antimony. All those three products, in a slurry, go to Teck up in Canada. We actually get the antimony there in Thompson Falls, and we make antimony trisulfide, which is a fire retardant. What we've done is we cut out the middleman, and we're putting in what's called a Hydromet facility in Idaho. It'll be about a $75 million project, which we've applied for the government to fund. How did we get to this Hydromet technology, and what the heck does that mean?
There was a company out of Canada that was active in the country of Bolivia last year that we've met and found out about, and they said, "We have a pilot project of a new process to handle antimony called Hydromet." We looked at it. We were very interested. Hydromet's been around for 40, 50 years but not done really much in antimony. We said, "I tell you what. We don't want a pilot project. If you'll take it to commercial scale, we'll fund you." Secretly, we didn't tell the Street, we funded that, got it up to commercial scale. For that, we have a license for Hydromet for North America and for Australia.
With that technology and with that commercial scale project now up and running in Bolivia, we are getting all that material to Thompson Falls, and this is what that material looks like. It's a processed antimony flake. That is 90-plus% antimony, can go right into our furnaces to make military-grade material. Why is that so important? With Hydromet, we can take subpar antimony. What that means is antimony that has ammonia or has lead or has sulfur, arsenic, all kinds of impurities that we have to deal with in our furnaces. The Hydromet process, which is an electrical process, can handle. We announced that we're 49%, Americas Gold and Silver is 51% joint venture, and we are in the process of designing that facility that'll be built. It'll be hopefully operational in the first quarter of 2029.
It'll take about a year and a half to build. We're continuing to take new technology, apply it to this business. This will allow us to take lots of antimony that we can't take today that's around the world that is subpar, is what we would call it, and make it into a high-grade product. The U.S. government is very excited about this new technology, and I think we'll get funding for that as we proceed. That's kind of a long-winded overview, but hopefully that gives you an idea.
It does. You can keep that. I got it. I can turn this one on. I guess maybe for starters, just talk about, you and I talked about this last night, that a lot of my other companies talk about, I'd say early-stage companies, talk about feasibility studies and different studies to do that. Again, you've come along. Investors, you and I have been on the road. Some investors say, "Hey, why don't you do a feasibility study on this or that?" Maybe walk through and around that.
Yeah. A typical mine, if you started from scratch in the United States or Canada, or really anywhere around the world, it's a 15, 20 year process. We're doing things in a year and a half, and they go, "How are you doing that?" Well, we're not going to spend two years doing a feasibility study. We're not going to go do some little drilling in this and doing geological work and geophysical work. All the properties we have are old mines. There's nothing new really being discovered in North America. These are old properties, and so we have lots of data already. Even the U.S. government, when they funded, of that $37 million, $7 million of it is geared for Alaska. One of the guys goes, "Well, where's your feasibility study?" I go, "Why do I need a feasibility study?
I'm mining this shit right now. I don't need somebody to tell me what it's going to be. I got it. It's a different mentality. We're moving in a, what I call a warp-speed mode. Everything that we look at, in any kind of new project, we have to do it in a year or two, or we won't do it. There's none of this three-year, four-year, five-year. Let's take Perpetua. 12 years it took them to get their permits. Sure, they just got their loan from the EXIM Bank for almost $3 billion. They're still four and a half years away from producing. They talk about all their antimony, which is sub-grade. We're not that kind of company. We have to see results quickly, and we move very fast.
I've just hired, in the last month and a half, four new geologists, These are full-time guys that are 40, 50 years old that have been in the business and worked all over the world. We move very quickly. We're not waiting on a feasibility study.
It's funny you just said that. It was going to lead to my next question anyway, was going to be on your team, on your personnel. Again, I've met a lot of them. I've been to Montana. Again, I've seen these guys. You and I always feel old when we're up here, but some of the guys you have even less hair than myself and even grayer hair than yourself. Maybe talk about the team because, and I think what you mentioned to me at dinner last night about how they've seen— As you said, this is an industry. This antimony's been around, feels like for 100 years. They know where the bodies are buried. Maybe talk about the team and what this brings.
Yeah. Every business that has success is about people and knowledge, right? I have two guys on my board, they're in their 70s and 80s, that have run companies all over the world. Rio Tinto , Cleveland-Cliffs. Have made all kinds of discoveries. My lead geologist in Alaska found the largest gold mine in Alaska called Fort Knox. It's active today. These fellas are the ones that when I find something I like, I run it by them, and they'll give me the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's really a good team effort. None of them, I think, have the financial background historically that I've had. We've been successful by being a team, and so you can't understand how important it is, the relationships they have with all these other engineers and geologists and friends. "Oh, well, Joe Blow has this project in Nevada.
He's had it for 20 years. Nobody will look at it. We look at things that other people don't see. I bought a property in Alaska in December. It was a trustee sale. Took me nine months of checking out the environmental situation. Had problems with the BLM. They had all kinds of issues. We bought it for $1.3 million at the courthouse steps in Fairbanks, Alaska. I have a new resource report because we dug the files and found it. We just updated it. It shows future revenues of $480 million from gold, and we bought it as an antimony property. Those are the kind of gems that are very hard to find. Takes a lot of work, a lot of digging, a lot of knowledge, and that's the kind of things that we look for.
If you look at our portfolio, it's full of those.
Maybe so people here understand, just your antimony business, for your mines and such, is it complicated for you to obviously procure the feedstock, send it to Thompson Falls, where you now have the second smelter and all? Talk about the process in between and how complicated or if complicated it is.
I get asked all the time. Why did somebody else build a smelter? I go: "Where the hell are they going to get the antimony?" Who builds a refinery without antimony?
Right.
I'm having a hard time finding it all over the world, and there's a lack of supply.
When I say lack of supply, of quality supply that you can process—
Right
Make military-grade material. Our goal is to be mining 100% ourselves.
Okay.
We'll never get there, I can tell you, because our growth in volume will be so fast, we can never mine it fast enough.
Hope to be 40%, 50% in the next couple of years, but time will tell. Alaska's really our crown jewel, that we'll know a whole lot more by the end of summer of what kind of antimony deposits we have, because we're doing so much work up there right now. That's why there's no competition because nobody has any antimony, and the companies that do have it's sub-par, and they go, "We can't build a refinery to handle this.
Is the mining going to be complicated? Open mines, closed?
It's not really. The mining's not that complicated.
Okay.
We're really finding it on the surface and on the rocks. On less than eight feet below surface.
Okay.
You're looking for these veins and you're using backhoes, and you find the vein, you follow it, you dig it up.
Okay.
Like at Montana, that eventually goes down the mountain. We will be mining underground, but at the present time, everything is on the surface.
Okay.
We typically buy the land, and that way we don't have to deal with landowners.
Okay. Could you talk a bit and make sure everybody understands here, because I think there is such upside potential around the Hydromet. You said you've done, of course, the agreement with USAS.
Yes.
You have that. Is that a one-off? Maybe start with that to make sure we understand what you're building out for them, why they came to you, and then two, is there more upside to do more with U.S. Or is there more to take exactly a Hydromet to do that other places?
Yeah. Okay, great question. USAS, as I was saying, takes their material up to Teck. By us becoming the middleman, if you will, Americas Gold & Silver will make an extra $50 million a year.
Wow.
We will have antimony that we don't have today. There's no question that once we had made that announcement, we started getting contacted by companies that you would know, that, "Hey, can we bring our antimony to you?" We're designing the plant so it'll be bigger than what Americas Gold and Silver has to process. Can we duplicate that? Absolutely. We're definitely looking at the possibility of Australia.
There's no processing of antimony in Australia today. Most of it all goes to China, which, as a Western country, it's kind of surprising to me that the government would allow that. What we have to realize is that we're dealing with a 10,000-pound gorilla being the People's Republic of China, and we're trying our best to figure out ways to put, whether it be a gas-fired furnace or a Hydromet facility, in that we can have more control of our destiny. This is all about bringing back critical minerals to the United States, to North America, and the processing of those. We're just in a unique position as that this company had the processing already and we've just improved it dramatically.
Okay. Can you talk a bit about the government contract that you've fulfilled now, part of that? How big can that continue to expand? Maybe just continuous talks you've had with the government?
Well, when we first won the contract, they told us that the current inventory with the government was the lowest it's been since World War II. That was before Venezuela, that was before Iran. I imagine it's pretty depleted. I firmly believe that as we ramp up, which we're doing right now to fulfill that contract, that will become a multi-billion-dollar contract.
Wow.
When we put it out on .gov when we won it said, "United States Antimony Corporation is the only company qualified to bid on this project.
What were the qualifications, or how does that?
You just had to have a refinery, and there was no refinery.
There was no other refinery, okay.
Yeah.
Okay. Is there continuous talks? Meaning once you fulfill that, there'll be more government talks? Are you in continuing?
I think so. One thing we did, which I pride myself on accomplishment, I put a board member on named General Jack Keane. If you watch Fox News, you see him on there almost every day. He's been very, very helpful to us as we've had bottlenecks. You can imagine our government is still a bureaucracy, no matter who's running it and whenever we've had a problem, he has fixed it within days. He has direct contact with the Secretary of War, head of the Pentagon, and he's Trump's right-hand man. He's been a great asset to us.
You're talking about feedstock. Historically, I didn't mention too much today with Mexico. Maybe talk about where the feedstock is coming from today, historically, because again, to y'all's credit, you said until Alaska really ramps up, till Montana ramps up, you've been able to pull maybe even as part of where you've been getting it. You and I have talked over the years. I know some of the crazy stories about a lost cargo for how long. All these things that I don't think people realize happen. Maybe talk about that a minute or two.
Yeah. I would say 2025 was our year of experimentation, of buying all these different procurements of antimony from the five, six countries I named. We've honed it down to two countries.
Okay.
Chad and Bolivia. Why? It's the highest grade antimony. We're getting 50%, 60% concentrate from Chad. Lots of volume. Bolivia's obviously where we have the Hydromet.
That's what's coming from Bolivia. This will be 150 tons a month, beginning in the next 30 to 60 days, and Chad is about 300 to 400 tons a month. High-quality material. You mentioned material we got confiscated. We were buying material from a company out of Australia called Mandalay. Three different containers full. Our third one got confiscated. It was on a transload facility and then got stopped in China, Beijiao Port , and the Chinese government took our antimony and held it for six months. We had to get the State Department involved.
The Trump administration finally got it released. They'd broken all the seals, tampered with the product, and why? All the antimony that we were getting from Mandalay used to go to China, and they were ticked, and it sure had our name on the side of the container. They said, "Well, we're just going to hold it.
Is most of this antimony You said, and maybe so we understand, the quality. How different is quality coming? Did you say arsenic or something? I know you've had issues and again.
Material from Australia turned out to be really bad material because it had way too much arsenic and lead. It was above the requirements under our contract.
What happens then? What do you have to do?
We paid them 85%. We kept 15%, and we've not given them the other 15% and told them.
Right
You know, pound dirt.
Right. Right. Is the plan now, I guess we just have a minute or two left. Again, maybe talk a little bit about financially, because I know the government, you've done a lot of backing where you all sit, and Jonathan, you can jump in as well. Sort of backing-wise, where you guys sit financially. Again, I think because the delay at Montana, you kind of have, I call it, pushed out to the right with the guidance for this year. Again, everybody's still. There's a lot of moving parts.
A lot of moving parts.
Maybe kind of help us just sort of conclude before we go to the breakout.
Yep
Always at these breakouts, I like to talk a little bit more macro and different things there. Would love to see kind of financially where do you all sit, and then when we think about top line, again, how you're thinking about how to kind of exit the year and again, without too much into next year yet, how you're thinking about it.
This year's all about timing with respect to how fast we can fulfill this government contract. We are sitting today on about $154 million of liquidity. We have hardly any debt. It's less than $200,000. We have a credit line we've never used. That liquidity is a combination of cash and government bonds and marketable securities. We are well-funded. Our CapEx needs this year are pretty minimal because we've already spent the money on the expansion at Thompson Falls. We're now getting reimbursed for that. Of that $27 million, we've gotten $12, and then we'll get the rest of it this year. As I mentioned, we have $245 million of additional grant money we've requested on three or four different projects. Will we get all that? Probably not. Will we get half of it? I think good chance.
Okay.
I think we're well-positioned, with respect to our financial. We'll be generating positive cash flow and EBITDA this year. The Hydromet facility with Americas Gold and Silver is $75 million, but we're only half of that. I'm pretty sure the government will help fund that, because it's new technology.
they'd like to see brought here to the United States. Anyway, I think we're well-funded for not having to go do an equity offering or anything.
Got it. All right. I think we're out of time again. We'll be at breakout. Gary, thanks for the time. Appreciate it.
Thank you.