Antimony Mining in Fairbanks, Alaska: Projects and Firms

No antimony mine near Fairbanks, Alaska, reports commercial production today. The area produced about 4.1 million pounds of antimony metal between 1905 and 1986, mostly in wartime, and it is now an exploration district again. In 2026, two listed companies, United States Antimony Corporation (NYSE: UAMY) and Felix Gold (ASX: FXG), are drilling, trenching and sampling there, and neither has reported a resource estimate for a Fairbanks-area antimony deposit.

This page sets out who is active, what their own filings say, how much the district produced in the past, and what the numbers mean for a consultant or investor who needs to size an Alaska antimony-gold prospect. Antimony (Sb) is a silver-grey metal. Its sulfide mineral, stibnite, is the usual ore. In Alaska it most often sits in narrow quartz veins beside gold.

Is anyone mining antimony near Fairbanks, Alaska?

Not at commercial scale. The USGS says that in 2025 one domestic company began mining antimony in Montana, that the United States had no reported mine output in earlier years, and that net import reliance was an estimated 91% of apparent consumption (USGS, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). Alaska is not that Montana producer.

The Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys (DGGS) takes the same cautious line. Its antimony fact sheet says several Alaska projects have antimony that is identified but not quantified, and that production from them is unlikely in the near term because of long lead times and other hurdles (DGGS, Antimony in Alaska). That is a better guide to the Fairbanks area than any single company headline.

What exists now is early-stage work: soil sampling, trenching, short drill holes, bulk-sample extraction and pilot metal tests. The sections below separate what each company has measured from what it hopes to do.

How much antimony has the Fairbanks district produced?

DGGS credits Alaska with 11,070,800 pounds of antimony mined from 1905 to 1986, shipped from at least 25 deposits in short bursts that followed wartime demand and price spikes. The Kantishna district, now inside Denali National Park and Preserve, made almost 5.6 million pounds. The Fairbanks district made 4.1 million pounds, and the rest of the state about 1.38 million pounds (DGGS fact sheet).

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Alaska antimony production by area

Million pounds of antimony metal, 1905-1986

The Scrafford (Treasure Creek) lode north of Fairbanks supplied more than half of the district total, about 2.1 million pounds of antimony from roughly 2,760 metric tons of selected ore. The state’s own report calls these figures estimates, because no underground or surface maps exist for work before 1971. Ore shipped in 1915 to 1918 averaged about 58% antimony (Robinson and Bundtzen, DGGS Open-File Report 173).

Grade (the share of metal in the rock) explains why old Alaska antimony stopped when prices fell. DGGS notes that most Alaska occurrences are small, high-grade fissure veins, some of them 50% antimony or more. Such veins are cheap to sort by hand and expensive to scale.

Antimony companies active in Alaska compared

The table lists companies that, in documents dated 2024 to 2026, report antimony work in Alaska or hold the United States’ main antimony reserve. We chose them by one rule: a filed or published statement that the company holds ground or runs a project, with the source and date shown. Companies known only from press commentary are left out. No company here is ranked as better; they are in order of how close their Alaska antimony work is to Fairbanks.

Perpetua is in the table because readers searching for Alaska antimony often want the nearest large US project. Its Stibnite Gold Project is in Valley County, Idaho. It is a gold-antimony open pit, and the company describes its reserve as the only antimony reserve in the United States. This is the company’s statement, and it cites the USGS.

Other names that DGGS lists for antimony work in Alaska include Nova Minerals’ Estelle project in the western Alaska Range, where surface sampling was announced in 2024. DGGS also says antimony is present in the ores of the Fort Knox, Pogo, Kensington and Greens Creek mines, and that some Greens Creek ore types average 4.6% antimony. None of those mines has announced an antimony resource or reserve (DGGS).

For a wider list of producers by country, see our comparison of antimony mining companies, and for sites across the lower 48 see antimony minerals and mines in the USA.

Felix Gold at Treasure Creek: what the filings show

Treasure Creek is the old Scrafford ground, so it is the Fairbanks project with the longest antimony record. Felix Gold’s 22 May 2026 release reports final 2025 drilling results from the NW Array prospect. The best antimony intercepts were 2.53 metres at 4.34% Sb, including 0.50 metres at 20.85% Sb, and 3.36 metres at 2.20% Sb. The same structures carried gold, with one hole returning 29.26 metres at 2.16 g/t gold from 13.4 metres depth (Felix Gold ASX release, 22 May 2026). A g/t is grams of metal per tonne of rock; 1 g/t is one part per million.

On 19 August 2026 the company announced that the US Department of Energy had selected its Treasure Creek pilot processing facility for negotiation of an award of up to US$18 million, one of nine projects chosen from a US$162 million program. The company’s proposed cost share is about US$4.8 million, to be given in kind as ore. Felix says it is targeting mining operations in June 2027 and a US smelter by the end of 2027, but it also states that these timings are aspirational, that no scoping, pre-feasibility or feasibility study has been completed, and that they depend on permits, funding and award negotiations (Felix Gold ASX release, 19 August 2026).

Felix states that Treasure Creek is permitted and extracting massive stibnite now, with direct-shipped ore exceeding military-grade concentrate specifications (Felix Gold, 19 August 2026). Those are the company’s own statements.

In plain terms: the grades are real drill results over narrow widths, the funding is a selection for negotiation and not a payment received, and the production dates are goals.

US Antimony at Ester Dome and Nolan Creek: what the filings show

United States Antimony Corporation describes itself as a producer and processor of antimony, zeolite and other critical minerals. Its Alaska ground is new. The company says the Ester Dome claim blocks, more than 9,000 acres centred 7 miles from the Fairbanks airport, were acquired in 2025, and exploration began after all permits were received on 22 September 2025. More than 12,000 historical soil samples show high antimony in 15 areas, and the company had investigated three of the 15 by August 2026. It plans up to 50 drill holes (USAC update, 5 August 2026).

The same release covers Nolan Creek, bought at a trustee’s sale on 30 January 2026. It cites a technical report by Tom Bundtzen that describes an inferred reserve of 42,412 tons grading 28% Sb and 0.408 ounces of gold per ton, and puts a gross value of about US$8,900 per ton on it at US$4,000 per ounce of gold and US$13 per pound of antimony. That is a value before any mining, processing or transport cost, and the label “inferred” means the lowest level of geological confidence. This is the company’s statement, and it is used here only to test the calculator below.

The company also states that all of its antimony feed in 2026 so far has come from foreign sources and that the mined ore it has trucked to its mill so far is from Montana. Its Alaska properties are therefore exploration assets, not a producing mine.

Antimony price and US supply: the numbers

Antimony moved from a niche metal to a headline in two years. The USGS puts the average metal price at US$5.31 per pound in 2021 and US$10.24 in 2024, with an estimate of US$25 per pound for 2025. US apparent consumption was 28,600 metric tons in 2024 and an estimated 45,000 in 2025, and imports of antimony oxide rose from 24,000 to an estimated 39,000 tons over the same period (USGS, 2026). Recycling supplied 12% of estimated consumption. Flame retardants took 49% of use, antimonial lead and ammunition 40%, and ceramics, glass and rubber 11%.

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Average antimony metal price

US$ per pound

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US antimony oxide imports and consumption

Metric tons, 2021 to 2025 estimate

These are annual averages and estimates. Spot prices differ by grade, location and day, so check a current assessment from your own supplier before putting a price into any model.

Where the rest of the world mines antimony

World mine production was an estimated 110,000 tons in 2025 (USGS), against 119,000 tons in 2024 after revisions. China mined 40,000 tons in both years, Russia 32,000 in 2025 (down from 40,000), Tajikistan 22,000, Bolivia 5,000 and Burma 4,500. The United States entry is withheld to protect company data. That concentration is the reason US policy treats antimony as a critical mineral, and the reason a handful of small Alaska exploration projects draw attention.

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Antimony mine output, leading countries

Metric tons of contained antimony

What is Alaska antimony-gold ore worth per ton?

Gold and antimony share many Alaska veins, so a project needs both grades and both prices. The calculator below gives the gross in-ground value per short ton (2,000 pounds) and the value after your recovery assumption. Use it to test a company’s published grade; it is not a resource estimate and ignores mining, processing, freight, royalties and penalties.

Copper in Alaska: why Fairbanks is an antimony story

Copper is mined in Alaska, one of eight US states the USGS lists as producing it in 2025, but Arizona accounted for about 70% of the national total (USGS, Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: copper). The large Alaska copper deposits are not in the Fairbanks district. Pebble, in the Bristol Bay watershed of southwest Alaska, holds copper, gold and molybdenum and has been blocked by the Army Corps permit denial and an EPA Clean Water Act determination, which are still in litigation (Harvard Environmental and Energy Law Program tracker).

No operating copper mine is reported near Fairbanks. For Alaska copper districts, read our guide to Alaska copper river mines. Copper matters to antimony readers for one reason: both are critical minerals that the United States mostly imports, and the same supply-security argument is used for both.

▶ Why electric vehicles need copper, and where most of it is mined. · 6:03

Claims, permits and environmental rules near Fairbanks

Land status decides everything in Alaska. Ground can be state land, federal land, Native corporation land or private patented claims, and each has a different process. For a new state mining claim, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) requires the first annual rental within 45 days of posting the location notice: US$40 for a quarter-quarter-section claim of about 40 acres and US$165 for a quarter-section claim of about 160 acres. Failing to record the location certificate on time counts as abandonment of the claim under Alaska statute AS 38.05.265 (DNR location certificate notice). Later-year rents follow DNR’s own schedule, so use the DNR rental worksheet for the exact amount.

Exploration work needs its own permits. USAC says it began Ester Dome work only after receiving all permits in September 2025, and Felix Gold says it is well advanced on a multi-year mining permit. Neither is a substitute for checking the current requirements with the state and federal agencies that cover your ground.

Mining of any metal leaves a footprint of waste rock, tailings and land disturbance. The video below explains the main impacts of mining in plain terms; it is general, not specific to Alaska.

▶ The seven main environmental impacts of mining, explained in clay animation. · 2:31

How satellite screening helps a gold-antimony prospect

Satellites cannot see stibnite under a metre of tundra. What multispectral and hyperspectral imagery can show is the surface pattern that often goes with these veins: iron-oxide staining, clay and silica alteration, and the fault and fracture lines that carry the fluids. In the Fairbanks district the Yukon-Tanana metamorphic complex and the gold-quartz vein systems are the usual targets, so a consultant can use imagery to rank which parts of a large claim block deserve soil sampling first. Imagery narrows where to look; it does not replace sampling, drilling or a qualified geologist’s report.

Farmonaut maps a licence boundary from satellite data and returns target zones as exploration targets that sit ahead of any resource estimate. You can read more at farmonaut.com. The short video below explains the instruments behind remote sensing for mining.

▶ The instrument families behind remote sensing for mining, in plain words. · 2:01

What to check before you trust an antimony project claim

• Is the number a drill intercept, a historical estimate, an inferred resource or a reserve? Each carries a different level of confidence.
• What is the width? A 0.5 metre intercept at 20% Sb is exciting but may not be mineable on its own.
• Does the company say the figure is compliant with a standard such as NI 43-101, S-K 1300 or JORC? If not, treat it as historical or company-reported.
• Who holds the ground, and does the company own or only have an option? Check the company’s own filings for any purchase payments, options or royalties on each property.
• Are timelines described as targets? Statements like “mining in June 2027” are goals unless a permit is issued.
• What price does the valuation assume, and is it a dated, sourced figure?

This page is for information only and is not investment advice. Company statements are shown as the companies made them on the dates given.

We cover a connected topic in Nickel Companies Canada: 8 Producers and Projects Ranked.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an antimony mine in Alaska?

There is no operating antimony mine in Alaska in 2026. DGGS records production from 1905 to 1986, mostly from the Fairbanks and Kantishna districts. Current work is exploration.

Where was antimony mined near Fairbanks?

The main source was the Scrafford (Treasure Creek) lode north of Fairbanks, which made about 2.1 million pounds of the district’s 4.1 million pounds of antimony metal (DGGS).

Which companies explore for antimony near Fairbanks?

United States Antimony Corporation (Ester Dome and other claims) and Felix Gold (Treasure Creek) report active programs in documents from 2026. See the table above.

How much antimony did Alaska produce in total?

DGGS gives 11,070,800 pounds from 1905 to 1986, of which Kantishna made almost 5.6 million pounds and the Fairbanks district 4.1 million pounds.

What is stibnite?

Stibnite is antimony sulfide (Sb2S3), the main ore of antimony. Pure stibnite is about 71.7% antimony by weight.

Why is antimony called a critical mineral?

The USGS shows the United States depended on imports for an estimated 91% of its apparent consumption in 2025, and China and Russia together mined about 72,000 of the world’s estimated 110,000 tons. Uses include flame retardants, lead-acid batteries and ammunition.

Is antimony found with gold in Alaska?

Yes. DGGS says Alaska antimony is usually associated with lode gold, and Felix Gold reports gold and antimony in the same drill holes at Treasure Creek.

Can I stake a mining claim near Fairbanks?

On open state land you can, if you follow DNR’s location, recording and rental rules. First-year rent is US$40 for a 40-acre claim, due within 45 days. Check land status first, and confirm current rules with DNR.

Is there copper mining near Fairbanks?

Alaska’s large copper deposits, such as Pebble, are in other regions, not near Fairbanks.

Can satellites find antimony?

Not directly. Satellite data can map alteration and structures that often go with gold-antimony veins, which helps rank sampling targets. Samples and drilling confirm grade.

What does an antimony deposit’s grade need to be to matter?

There is no single cut-off. It depends on the price, mining method, gold credits and processing route. Use the calculator on this page to test a published grade at your own prices.