Nova Minerals reports ore sorting breakthrough at Alaskan antimony project

The company achieved a 132% boost in the processed ore’s antimony grade

Rowan Dunne

Published

22 hours ago

Nova Minerals Ltd (ASX: NVA) (OTCMKTS: NVAAF) (FRA: QM3) has been having success with an ore sorting system at its Estelle gold-antimony project in Alaska. It is one of the world’s most promising development-stage antimony (Sb) operations.

On Thursday, the Australian junior mining company reported that a bulk sample’s single pass through the system enabled a 132 per improvement in the material’s antimony grade. It achieved 63 per cent antimony recovery with grades as high as 35.2 per cent Sb.

The type of ore sorting tech used in the test work program was a sensor-based system with an X-ray transmission sorting algorithm. This method detects density levels and atomic composition, which is particularly useful for separating antimony-bearing material from waste rock.

The 500 kilogram pilot sample was taken from the site’s Styx prospect area. Results from a sample pulled out of another prospect area, Stibium, will be released in the near future.

“Achieving a 132 per cent upgrade to produce a 49.1 per cent antimony trisulfide concentrate from a single pass demonstrates Estelle’s high-grade antimony is amenable to low-cost, scalable, on-site processing,” said chief executive Christopher Gerteisen.

“Importantly, we’ve shown that 60.3 per cent of the contained antimony can be recovered in just 26.1 per cent of the mass, with gold beneficiating to the tailings — opening up synergies between the antimony and gold circuits at Estelle.”

Separating the antimony and gold is beneficial for Nova because it enables them to be processed individually in two systems designed for each commodity specifically instead of one. The tailings have now become a valuable gold resource. Nova reported that the average grade recovered went from 1.99 grams per tonne gold to 2.99 g/t Au.

Explainer flowsheet. Image credit: Nova Minerals

Estelle holds vast gold resources

The northern site is estimated to hold 9.9 million ounces of gold spread throughout 20 prospect areas. It spans 514 square kilometres with 804 mining claims.

Nova Minerals received praise for its recent progression at the Estelle project from the

“The project is an important example of the strong partnership between Australia and the United States on critical minerals and strategic resource security,” they said.

The Aussie mining company completed its Nasdaq listing one year ago. Nova has historically been focused on gold and lithium, but recently shifted focus away from the battery metal to antimony because of its rapidly ascending price and supply shortage.

It is one of a select few juniors operating in the U.S. that have projects with proven gold-antimony mineralization. NevGold Corp (CVE: NAU) (OTCMKTS: NAUFF) (FRA: 5E50) and Xtra Energy Ord Shs (OTCMKTS: XTPT) are a couple of others.