Thunderbird Resources enters Australian antimony market with strategic NSW acquisition

Thunderbird Resources (ASX: THB) has joined the Australian antimony rush with the signing of an agreement to acquire a land package in the New England Orogen area of New South Wales.

The high-potential exploration portfolio is located immediately adjacent to Australia’s largest antimony deposit, the Hillgrove project owned by Larvotto Resources (ASX: LRV).

Antimony, an essential mineral for military and high-tech applications, is at the centre of an escalating supply crisis as China – which controls nearly 80% of global production – continues to impose strict export restrictions.

Strategic acquisition

This significant price upside, along with Australia’s natural antimony resources, has seen a stream of local miners add the metal to their portfolios this year.

The latest of these, Thunderbird has strategically entered into a binding share purchase agreement with the shareholders of Kooky Resources to acquire all the issued share capital of the company.

Kooky Resources holds a 100% interest in exploration licences EL9053 and EL9147, noted for their prospectivity for high-grade antimony and gold mineralisation.

Exploration upside

Numerous historical prospects and occurrences are reported within EL9053, with sampling grades of up to 18.2% antimony and 76 grams per tonne of gold reported.

EL9147 covers the historical Kookabookra gold field, with multiple gold occurrences and potential for orogenic (both with and without antimony) and intrusion-related gold mineralisation.

Despite the number of historical gold and antimony occurrences, the area has had minimal modern exploration or drilling since the 1980s.

Low-cost opportunity

Executive chair George Bauk noted that antimony spot prices currently sit at record highs of around US$25,000/t, more than double what they were 12 months ago.

“This proposed acquisition provides an enormously exciting, low-cost opportunity for Thunderbird to acquire highly prospective exploration tenements in the heart of Australia’s emerging antimony district,” Mr Bauk said.

“Our initial exploration programs at these assets will focus on these historical workings and prospects, but we will also consider unexplored areas using modern airborne geophysics to develop new targets,” he said.

“These new tenements also provide an opportunity for Thunderbird to undertake exploration throughout the […] northern hemisphere winter when our Canadian exploration assets are less accessible.”

Data compilation

Initial work on the Rockvale and Kookabookra projects will target detailed compilation of all historical exploration and publicly available geological data.

A review of the data will then be undertaken to identify the high-priority target areas for initial on-ground work.

Initial on-ground work is likely to comprise geological mapping, rock chip and soil sampling, as well as detailed aeromagnetics.

Consideration for the proposed acquisition includes an upfront $80,000 cash payment, with a further $70,000 in cash and 30 million Thunderbird fully paid ordinary shares to be issued upon completion of the transaction and several deferred components.