Artemis Resources (ASX: ARV) has launched a 3000 metre reverse circulation drilling program at the Eastern Hills Antimony Project, which has received support from the Western Australian government with co-funding of up to $140,000.
The funding is estimated to cover around half of the costs.
Eastern Hills is adjacent to the Mt Clement Gold Project (ARV 80%) - a joint venture gold project with Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST, 20%), operator of the nearby Paulsens (>1Moz) Gold Mine.
The drilling is designed to upgrade existing target 410,000 tonnes to 1.25 million tonnes at 1.5-1.9% antimony and 2.1-2.7% lead to a JORC Resource.
Highlighting the prospectivity of the area, surface rock chip sampling by Artemis in 2013 on the main lode at Eastern Hills returned highly encouraging antimony assay results of up to 7.5% antimony as well as high grade lead and silver results.
The demand for antimony continues to increase with China currently responsible for around three-quarters of global production, and with supplies dwindling, this provides an opportunity for Australian antimony plays such as Artemis.
Antimony prices have surged almost 400% over past 10 years and remain robust, currently around $9500 per tonne.
The principal use of antimony metal is as an ingredient in alloys, where it provides hardness, strength, anticorrosion and other properties, with antimonial lead used for the automotive industry and stand-by batteries.
Other uses are in solders, ammunition, corrosion resistant pipes and cable sheathing.
An important new use is the development of a new generation of memory devices which will replace flash drive memory devices presently used in computers, mobile phones and USB memory devices.
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