U. S. ANTIMONY REPORTS APPROVAL OF LOS JUAREZ LEACH PLANT PERMIT
December 4, 2017. Thompson Falls, Montana. United States Antimony Corporation (“USAC”, NYSE American “UAMY”) reported that SEMARNAT (the equivalent of the U.S. EPA) has issued USAMSA (a wholly owned subsidiary of USAC) the permit for a cyanide leach plant for the Puerto Blanco mill in Guanajuato, Mexico.
The plant is designed to recover gold and silver from the pilot flotation mill tailings of the Los Juarez gold-silver-antimony deposit in Queretaro, Mexico. The deposit is 3.5 kilometers in length and over 1 kilometer in width. It has all the signature elements of the Carlin gold mine and the Robert’s Mountain over-thrust belt in Nevada. The deposit has been owned by two major mining Companies but has never gone into production due to the complex metallurgy. USAC has solved the metallurgical problem with the floatation product by adding an alkaline leach circuit. A second issue was that the mill only recovered 30 to 50% of the gold and 60 to 80% of the silver in the flotation concentrate. Test work showed that these values could be recovered by a cyanide leach of the mill tailings. USAC has finally gotten the permit for the cyanide leach after many years. Construction of the leach circuit has commenced. Initial projects will include a plastic liner for the tailings pond and construction of the leach plant building. In Montana, construction of leach plant equipment is underway
The Los Juarez deposit is mined by open pit, bulk- mineable methods. The estimated recovery of the values after the caustic leach of the flotation concentrates and the cyanide leach of the tailings is as follows (3.09 grams/metric ton gold equivalent at current prices):
Metal / Assay / Recovery / Value / Value /mtGold / 0.035 opmt / 90% / $1,286/oz / $40.51
Silver / 3.27 opmt / 90% / $17.01/oz / $50.06
Antimony / 0.652% / 70% / $3.80/lb / $38.11
Total / $128.68
A major raw materials supply contract was renewed on November 1, 2017 until the end of 2018. Our processing cost allowance was increased by 34.8% and our percentage of the profit was increased by 2%. .
Estimated sales for the month of November 2017 were as follows:
Product / November 2017Antimony pounds / 170,184
Zeolite short tons / 1,135
At the beginning of November 2017, the average Rotterdam price of Grade I antimony metal per metric ton was $8025.00 ($3.640 per pound), and by the end of November, the price had increased to $8150.00 ($3.696 per pound) approximately a 1.5% increase. The total non North American production in October was 44.4% and that for November was 41.8%.
CEO John Lawrence said “We are excited about receiving the cyanide leach permit for the Los Juarez gold-silver-antimony deposit. The pilot plant will establish major gold and silver production for USAC and pave the way for the mill expansion. We intend to fund the construction of the cyanide leach plant from cash flow and to ramp up pilot production in 2018. We continue to evaluate several financial opportunities presented to the Company that do not involve dilution of any kind. We will keep you advised on these opportunities.”
About U.S. Antimony
US Antimony is a growing, vertically-integrated natural resource company that has production and diversified operations in precious metals, zeolite and antimony.
Forward Looking Statements:
This Press Release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that are based upon current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events, including matters related to the Company's operations, pendingcontracts and future revenues, ability to execute on its increased production and installation schedules for planned capital expenditures and the size of forecasted deposits. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements and the assumptions upon which they are based are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations and assumptions will prove to have been correct. The reader is cautioned not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, as these statements are subject to numerous factors and uncertainties. In addition, other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are discussed in the Company's most recent filings, including Form 10-KSB with the Securities and Exchange Commission.