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Well, you might recall earlier this month Bloomberg exclusively reporting out that President Trump was set to launch a strategic critical mineral stockpile with twelve billion dollars in seed money, all in a bid to insulate manufacturers from supply shocks as the US works to slash its reliance on Chinese rare earths and other metals. Meantime, you see a lot of companies doing deal in the space.
Tip.
Yeah, I'm at today. Shares of America's Gold and Silver Corporation rallied as much as eight percent this after the miners said it would partner with United States Antimony to construct and operate an antimony processing plan and IDA host some details here and then we're going to get to the conversation. Facility will be fifty one percent owned by America's Golden Silver and forty nine percent owned by US Antimony. It'll be located in the Silver Valley in Idaho.
All Right, So let's get to great to have with US. Gary Evans, Chairman and CEO of United States Antimony Corporation. It's a one point one billion dollar market cap minor, producer and seller of antimony products. It's based in Montana. Stock is up sixty six percent year to date, about twenty one percent of the float. Short also with US as Paul Andre Hewitt. He is chairman and CEO of the two point six billion dollar market cap precious metal
minor based in Ontario, Canada. It is America's gold and silver corporation. That company shares are up about sixty one percent year to date, and we've seen it move in today's session. Gary and Paul both joining us here in studio. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Tell us about this joint venture, the financial aspects, how it actually logistically works down, and what it means in terms of critical minerals in the US and just kind of elsewhere. So whoever wants to pick it up, Yeah.
I'll just start. So, look, this joint venture we've been working on it actually not that long, to be very honest. Actually Gary and I were talking about it. We met about a month ago. We one month ago we met, both teams assembled at the Mind Sight in Idaho. His executive team, my executive team. We were signing documents late last night with our legal teams, both of us at ten thirty at night, finalizing this and this is a
transformational deal. Actually, this allows us to supply a product antimony to the US from the beginning right to the end. So US Gary's the expert in the antimony world, we're the experts in the mining world. And what we have is a mine, the Galina Mine in Idaho. Right now, we've got about three hundred and thirty employees. We just bought a second mine in Idaho. We closed it in December, so we bought the original one, transferred the whole management team,
and made some big upgrades in capital. What we're doing is revolutionizing this mine. This mine's been around for a long time and it produces five critical minerals. So we produce silver, copper, antimony, lead, and then a small amount of goal, but they're all five critical minerals, which is very very important. This deal is very important to us in US minors and to the US as a whole, because we need fifty million pounds of antimony per annum and we're not even close to producing it, not yet.
So this will allow us to start chewing away and getting some of that antimony produced domestically.
So Paul Andre Hugh had given us the America's Gold and Silver Corporation view. Gary Evans, come on back in here and talk about why this deal made sense for you at US antimony.
As you know, we're the only two we have the only two smelters for antimony in North America, so Montana and Mexico. And currently we're getting most of our supply from foreign sources and get it from the country of Chad, from Peru, Bolivia, Australia, Chile, Mexico, and we are looking for homegrown antimony. We are already processing Paul's antimony through another facility up in Canada. We receive that and we can make antimony try sul fight out of it. So the idea of when we met a month ago, met
our two management teams got together. We immediately said, look, this is an easy answer. We'll put our new technology we developed in Bolivia. Last year we made the first commercial grade antimony hydromet facility and it's now we receive one hundred and fifty tons a month of antimony from that facility. We can duplicate that in the United States. So we have the technology, we have the patents, we had the license for North America and Australia. He has
a land, he has a supply. So it was a marriage made in heaven.
So why weren't you processing here in the US.
Well, we are processing, but it's using foreign supplies. So he has domestic supplies which the country doesn't have.
New So the processing facility that you're going to be building, yes, give us timeline. When is it going to be running up at commercials is a great question.
He fortunately has all the permits that we need. Okay, so we are in the construction engineering phase. Now we should start within ninety day, be done in a year.
Wow, So in a year, Yeah, it's up in functioning.
Yeah.
If you think about the last one, sorry to interrupt, the last one that was built in the US was built in nineteen forty two at that same area in Silver Valley, and it took six months to build it. During World War Two that was actually built. Gary's team just built one in six months in Bolivia. So these are not massive facilities, but they're very important. So we will once we get the once we get the engineering
stages and everything done, and we start construction. It'll go pretty quick from that time.
Carrol mentioned Project Vault. Earlier this month, Bloomberg exclusively reporting out that President Trump set to launch a strategic critical mineral stockpile with twelve billion dollars in seed money. Gary, have you been in touch with the White House the administration at all about this? How much antimony do you expect the stockpile will hold?
Well?
We currently have a contract with a DLA, which is an Apartment of War, for two hundred and forty five million dollars to deliver antimony ingots, which is like a goal barn antimony bar cereal stamp. To put it on a pallette, We shrink wrap it and we send it to the government strictly for inventory for all the subcontractors of the government. Could be Buoying Northland, could be general motors.
They need antimony to make their products. So we are the stockpiler for the government, and we're the only approved company. In fact, when it went out to guv dot com, it said the United States Antimony Corporation is the only company capable of bidding on this contract. And so the fact that we've been around fifty something years, we can do this and so now we can take America's Gold Silver's antimony through our new hydromet process and do the same thing.
Have you talked to the White House just in the last few months about.
This, Well, General Jack Keane, I don't know if you know who he is. He's on our board of directors and so he's been very helpful. We've already won the DLA contract, we have a Department of War grant coming with our now new joint venture. We're finding a new white paper with Apartment of Wars. We filed a grant request at Apartment of Energy for forty five million dollars January fifteenth. So we are constantly in the mixed seeking capital to help grow the center price.
We're talking with Gary Evans, chairman and CEO of US Antimony, and Paul Andrehwitt at CEO at America's Gold and Silver Corporation. Without the US support and backing, would this be happening.
Yeah, Look, there's no doubt what's happening now is changing things for us, and it's opening doors this.
Project, financially changing it, making it well.
We're going to be one of the first groups Carol actually putting in submitting this white paper for capital.
Okay, and nobody's done that yet.
Okay, we're the first, so which is really important. I was just at the White House. In fact, I've met with a couple of Senators, governor, congressman, and it's very clear that this this project vault, it creates a floor. It allows us to not have that volatility that we're
up against. You know, we've got to prepare ourselves for if China's going to dump a whole bunch of antimony on the market, We've got to be able to protect that pricing for us, like people like us who are producing it domestically.
Well, let's go there. Because you know, you also have the US reaching agreements with the European Union to PanAm Mexico to cooperate on securing critical minerals used in various industries. So they have committed to creating price floors. What kind of price floor is needed for antimony? What would be the ballpark the price that kind of would shield you from China oversaturating the market.
I think something in the twenty dollars per pound range would be a great price floor to protect us. You got to understand China has one hundred year plant. We've been sitting behind the eight ball for twenty five years, watching China go all over the world, take over countries, take over minds, and they drove the antimony price down to such a level it drove everybody out of business. And fortunately our company stayed alive, only one that did
stay alive. Yeah, and now we're reaping the benefit of having these refineries up and running.
Hey, Paul, you have lived all over the world. You've done this all over the world. We're a big part of the conversation is the US reliance on China. Yeah, and I'm just curious what you're seeing because the US and China still haven't reached an agreement when it comes to export control licenses for rare earths and permanent magnets are are is any export any antimony being exported from China to US consumers that's not military related? And Garry feel free to jump in here too.
Yeah.
I mean I could probably answer this pretty well because we monitored daily. China cut off all antimony exports in every country in the world, including the United States in September twenty four. People think, oh, it's got to do with Trump's tariffs. This was during the Biden deministration. This happened, well, guess what China's biggest mind called the twinkle star of mine in China depleted last June of twenty four, so September,
three months later, they stopped all exports. Now are we seeing antimony dripping into the market in the black market? Probably some coming from Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, but China has actually arrested twenty some odd people. They don't want antimony going to the free world. Why we all need it? In military, you can't fire a bullet without antimony. Laser guided missiles, night vision cameras, not vision binoculars. I mean,
it's in everything you can imagine in the military. And so our administration fortunately has taken the lead and saying we've got to fix the critical mental problem. And it is fixable, but it's gonna take some time, and it's gonna take a lot of money.
And the one thing that I heard coming out of the White House, Tim was very clear. One of the messages I was talking about was well, we need fifty million pounds and we're going to be able to help make that solution. But it was very clear to me leaving the White House that we have to also think about our allies, And honestly, I never thought of that. As CEO of America's Golden Zilver, I thought, but go.
There because there's so much conflict. It feels like even with the US and its traditional allies that have been there for a long time, you're saying we can't do that. We've got to be cooperating.
Right, Carol. Look, it was very crystal clear and was made very clear to me. Change your pitch, even as the CEO of America's Gold and Silver. Change your story, because you don't just need fifty million pounds for the US, you need another eighty percent on top of that for our allies who we have to make sure in NATO that we protect along the way, which honestly, for me, I didn't understand that completely, and I don't I think
a lot of people don't understand it. Never mind the fifty million pounds we consume per year, right our allies is another forty million pounds, So we've got a deficit here. China's been so far ahead, Like Gary says, we're starting to help this situation significantly by this.
JV, which goes back to national security. Can't just think about your own backyard. You've got to think about your allies as well. Gentlemen, please stay in touch, let us know how things are going. Gary Evans, CEO of US Antimony Corporation. Paul Andrey Hewitt, he is CEO of America's Golden Silver Corporation. You are listening and watching Bloomberg BusinessWeek Daily