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Locksley shares soar after US Rice University antimony deal
Brought to you by BULLS N’ BEARS
By James Pearson
Locksley Resources share price jumped out of the gates this morning, up 46 per cent to 33 cents a share on heavy turnover after announcing it had struck a game-changing alliance with Houston-based Rice University.
The company says an agreement has been inked with the renowned institution to pioneer domestic antimony processing and advanced materials research in the United States – a move that could position Locksley at the heart of America’s push to rebuild its antimony supply chain from scratch.
Locksley Resources has joined forces with Houston’s Rice University to fast-track United States antimony processing and build a mine-to-market supply chain.
The company’s share price is already up a massive 1733 per cent since the start of May. It has now been given another super-boost after its US-listed counterpart - trading under the code LKYRF - shot up 92 per cent to an equivalent of 44 cents per share in Australian money on Friday night.
Rice University stands at the forefront of materials science, nanotechnology and energy innovation. Its cutting-edge expertise in critical minerals was recently showcased through a breakthrough collaboration with ASX-listed Metallium Limited’s revolutionary flash-joule heating technology.
‘This marks a pivotal step in executing Locksley’s US mine-to-market antimony strategy.’
Locksley Resources chairman Nathan Lude
Metallium made headlines a year ago after announcing its breakthrough extraction process that fires ultra-fast electrical pulses through materials, superheating them in an instant to unleash valuable metals swiftly, cleanly and without chemicals.
Antimony - a critical metal used in ammunition, explosives, armoured vehicles, electronics and flame-retardant materials - has long been on Washington’s strategic radar. The US currently has no commercial-scale antimony processing capacity and relies instead on imports, 79 per cent of which come directly from China.
Management says the new deal with Rice is a key step in the company’s US strategy, backed by its high-grade Desert antimony mine in California’s Mojave Desert and the university’s top-tier expertise. The partners plan to pursue a two-pronged research and development push.
The joint venture’s priority will be to develop more sustainable forms of hydrometallurgical extraction through low-energy, environmentally benign processes, which could then be used on material from Locksley’s project or other US-sourced ores.
The current methods of hydromet processing for antimony can be messy, since the metal is usually trapped in sulphide ore. The rock must be roasted, releasing sulphur fumes, before the antimony can be leached out with acid or put through froth flotation to turn the leftover material into a concentrate.
If it can develop a clean extraction method, the partnership could be well on the way to reviving a long-lost US processing pathway for antimony - idle since the 1970s - this time rebuilt as a greener process.
The partners also want to push antimony beyond its traditional defence role. Rice scientists plan to test its potential in advanced batteries, supercapacitors and hybrid storage systems by developing antimony-based electrodes for both lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries, thereby paving the way for next-gen energy technologies.
Locksley Resources chairman Nathan Lude said: “This strategic collaboration with Rice University marks a pivotal step in executing Locksley’s US mine-to-market antimony strategy. We are not just rapidly advancing our upstream plans, we are helping rebuild downstream capacity through materials innovation, which America urgently requires.”
Head of Rice’s Department of Materials Science and Nanoengineering Professor Pulickel M. Ajayan said the collaboration combined Locksley’s resources with Rice’s research muscle to address “a critical supply chain gap”. With more than 1200 publications and 230,000 citations to his name, Ajayan is a pioneer in nanotechnology and battery innovation and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Locksley’s move to team up with Rice University is as much about geopolitics as it is about metallurgy. Antimony sits firmly on the US critical minerals list and previous executive orders under President Donald Trump flagged the urgent need to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers. With Beijing tightening export restrictions on critical materials, securing a sovereign American supply chain has never been more pressing.
By integrating upstream mining with downstream innovation, Locksley says it is positioning itself as a first mover in a sector that is vital to defence, energy storage and even artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company is also eyeing government funding and industry partnerships to help accelerate the push.
The Mojave project already has serious credentials. The company’s historic Desert antimony mine, which makes up part of Locksley’s project area, was last worked in 1937 and is recognised as one of the US’s highest-grade occurrences. Surface grades at the mine previously returned up to 46 per cent antimony and more than a kilogram of silver per tonne.
Mojave also lies alongside MP Materials’ ground – home to America’s only producing rare earths mine – underscoring the neighbourhood’s strategic value.
Locksley says next on the agenda is the appointment of a US advisory board, industry engagement and pilot project development.
If Rice University’s labs can deliver scalable processing and storage breakthroughs, Locksley could soon hold the keys to a new American critical minerals industry designed to cut China out of the equation.
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