Key Highlights

  • Laboratory testwork produced high-purity antimony metal from Montezuma ore in western Tasmania.
  • Leaching and electrowinning achieved antimony recoveries of up to 95%, with cathode grading between 99% and 99.5% antimony.
  • Rougher flotation lifted the leach feed to 4.08% antimony while rejecting more than 40% of the mass.
  • An updated resource is expected in December, with a scoping study targeted by the end of the March 2027 quarter.

Lode Resources (ASX:LDR) announced on 9 November 2026 that laboratory testwork had produced high-purity antimony metal from ore at its Montezuma Silver and Antimony Project, about 10 kilometres east of Zeehan in western Tasmania.

The process combined leaching with electrowinning, a technique in which metal is plated out of solution onto a cathode using an electric current. Lode reported antimony recoveries of up to 95%, with the cathode grading between 99% and 99.5% antimony.

Before leaching, rougher flotation lifted the leach feed to 4.08% antimony at 98.2% recovery, while rejecting more than 40% of the mass. Removing waste early reduces the Volume of material that needs to be treated with reagents.

Recovering the other metals

Lode says the leach residue responds to further flotation to recover silver, copper, tin, gold and lead. That matters because Montezuma is a polymetallic deposit, and the Economics of a future operation would depend on recovering several products rather than antimony alone.

Separate flotation tests on silver-zinc-lead mineralisation from the Maestries area returned rougher recoveries of 97.6% zinc, 93.9% silver and 92.8% lead.

Why producing metal matters

Most small antimony projects aim to sell a concentrate to a smelter. Producing metal on site, if achieved commercially, could allow Lode to capture more of the value chain and Supply customers directly. With China dominating global antimony refining, and having restricted exports, non-Chinese sources of refined antimony have attracted considerable interest from governments and manufacturers.

Managing Director Keith Mayes said producing high-purity antimony metal was an important milestone and confirmed a critical part of the flowsheet for Montezuma. He said the results could apply to similar mineralisation within the Greater Montezuma and Silver Hills projects.

Resource and study timetable

Montezuma has a mineral resource, announced in April, comprising indicated and inferred material totalling 8.2 million ounces of silver equivalent. Lode has completed its current drilling phase and expects an updated resource estimate in December.

Mine designs and schedules will then feed into a scoping study. Pitch Black Group has begun engineering, design and costing work, targeting completion of the scoping study by the end of the March 2027 quarter.

Near-term Revenue option

Lode is also in discussions with potential offtake partners over an initial 100-tonne shipment of direct shipping ore already mined from Montezuma. A small shipment would not be a major revenue source, but it could establish commercial relationships and provide market feedback on the material.

Exploration continues

Drilling continues at the Fahlore prospect using the company's own diamond rig. Permits are in place for Silver Cliffs and Persic, where Lode reports silver grades of up to 9,370 grams per tonne in sampling. Those grades come from selective samples and are not representative of average grades.

Qualifications

The results are from bench-scale testwork. Scaling up electrowinning from laboratory to plant involves challenges with reagent consumption, impurity control and energy use, and recoveries achieved in small tests are not always repeated at larger scale. Capital and operating costs for an antimony metal circuit have not yet been estimated.

Silver-equivalent resource figures depend on price and recovery assumptions, so the contribution of each metal should be examined when the updated estimate is released.

Tasmania's west coast has a long Mining history around Zeehan, Rosebery and Queenstown, and the region already has rail, port and power infrastructure. That existing infrastructure could reduce some development costs if Lode eventually advances Montezuma towards production, although no such assessment of that potential has yet been made public.

What comes next

The December resource update is the next scheduled milestone, followed by the scoping study in the March 2027 quarter. Progress on the 100-tonne shipment and any larger-scale or continuous testwork will also indicate how quickly Lode can turn its flowsheet into a development plan.