(Bloomberg) — A global shortage of antimony — widely used in munitions — could worsen as the US and Europe replenish stockpiles of bullets and bombs used in Ukraine, according to the company building one of the niche metal’s few new sources of supplies.
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Larvotto Resources Ltd. is due to start a mine in Australia next year, offering a rare new stream of output from a Western nation in an antimony industry dominated by China and Russia. Prices of the metal are nearly four times higher than a year ago, after Beijing tightened exports of critical materials, triggering a scramble for supplies across high-tech and defense industries.
Antimony-lead alloys are used in bullet cores, explosives and shrapnel weapons. Ukraine’s Western military backers have drawn on ageing inventory that will now need replaced, Larvotto’s managing director Ron Heeks said in an interview.
“The antimony and lead from these munitions would normally be recycled into new weapons, but those have gone to the front line in Ukraine,” Heeks said.
Military applications remain a small segment of antimony’s demand, which is dominated by flame retardants, lead-acid batteries and the chemicals industry. Excluding the batteries, the world needs about 120,000 tons a year and it’s only producing about 80,000 tons, Heeks said.
China in December slapped a ban on US-bound exports of antimony, gallium and germanium, flexing its strong grip on strategic materials. While US President Donald Trump is pursuing an end to the Ukraine war, his America-first foreign policy is spurring European nations to ramp up defense spending — including on munitions.
China, Russia and Tajikistan produce about 87% of the world’s mined antimony supply, according to Mandalay Resources Corp., which operates a mine in Australia that counts for just 2%, and where output is declining.
The Biden administration last November gave initial approval to a proposed mine in Idaho that was part-funded by the Defense Department to generate domestic supplies. Larvotto’s Hillgrove project will be Australia’s biggest antimony mine, supplying as much as 7% of global demand, according to the company.
(Corrects name of project in final paragraph.)
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