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Most people have never bought a gram of antimony, yet they handle it constantly. The silvery metal hardens lead, slows the spread of fire in plastics and textiles, and goes into the primers that make ammunition fire. For years it drew little notice because it was cheap and simple to source. That comfort faded once buyers took a closer look at where it comes from. According to the U.S. Geological Survey and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, China accounts for roughly 48% of global antimony mine production and has supplied about 63% of U.S. imports, while the U.S. produces almost none of its own.
The danger in that concentration became clear in 2024. China began restricting antimony exports in August of that year, then in December moved to block shipments to the U.S. entirely, citing national security. Prices behaved the way scarce goods usually do, climbing toward nearly $50,000 per ton, close to ten times the five-year average. Because the metal goes into armor-piercing rounds, night vision equipment, and infrared sensors, the U.S. Department of the Interior lists it as a critical mineral, which turned the shortage into a defense problem rather than a purely commercial one.
Into that gap steps a company that calls itself the only fully integrated antimony producer outside China and Russia. United States Antimony Corporation (NYSE: UAMY) has given a broad update on mining work across Alaska, Montana, and Ontario, and framed the year as a turning point. It says 2026 will be the first time it feeds its own mined ore into customer and military contracts instead of relying entirely on foreign purchases, and it has been delivering military-grade antimony ingots in rising monthly amounts since June.
The centerpiece is Nolan Creek, a known gold and antimony deposit in Alaska that the company did not find but bought at a Trustee’s Sale in January 2026. A recent technical report filed with Canadian regulators puts it at 42,412 tons grading 28% antimony and 0.408 ounces of gold per ton. At assumed prices of $4,000 per ounce of gold and $13 per pound of antimony, that comes to about $8,900 per ton, or roughly $377 million in gross in-situ value before mining, processing, or transportation costs are subtracted. One point deserves care. The company calls this an inferred reserve, but inferred material is properly a resource, the lowest-confidence category in mining, so the tonnage is an early estimate rather than a proven, mineable figure. Underground mining is planned to begin late this year.
The other two regions are a mix of further along and earlier stage. At Stibnite Hill in Montana, the company trucked roughly 800 tons of 10% antimony ore in 2025, paused after state regulators asked for added contamination safeguards, and resumed in late July 2026 with another 300 tons sent to its newly acquired Radersburg mill. Test work suggests the highest-grade fraction can meet the specification for ammunition primers, while the rest becomes feed for metal ingots supplied under a Defense Logistics Agency contract. In Ontario, at the Fostung tungsten deposit, it has invited bidders, including First Nation corporations, to help take a bulk sample of at least 20,000 tons. Management says all three programs reached active mining or sampling on only $2.8 million of capital spending through June 30, 2026.
What all of this amounts to is a small company trying to turn a national supply problem into a working business. The appeal is easy to follow, a domestic and vertically integrated source of a metal the Pentagon needs, built quickly and on modest capital. The counterweight is just as real. Inferred numbers can shrink under closer drilling, gross in-situ values ignore the heavy cost of actually mining and refining, weather limits the work season in remote ground, and the company still leaned on 100% foreign antimony through the middle of 2026. Whether the year becomes the pivot it describes will depend less on the size of the headline figure and more on how much metal actually reaches a furnace.
