Larvotto Resources has officially joined the ranks of Australia’s critical minerals producers, shipping its first batch of antimony concentrate from the company’s Hillgrove antimony-gold mine in New South Wales to offtake partner Wogen Resources.
The company says the first truck carrying 68 tonnes of antimony concentrate has left the site, initiating mine-gate offtake sales and making Larvotto Australia’s newest supplier of critical minerals.
Under the shrewdly structured mine-gate offtake agreement, partner Wogen Resources collected the high-grade concentrate directly from Hillgrove for an initial part-payment, allowing cash to start flowing without the long shipping delays and distant laboratory results that can often hamstring new producers. A second, final payment will follow once independent assays confirm final metal content.
The major milestone follows an extensive redevelopment and plant upgrade program at Hillgrove, which is set to produce 4900 tonnes of antimony and 40,500 ounces of gold per year, making it one of the world's largest antimony producers and giving it control of a staggering 7 per cent of global supply.
Management says the production ramp-up is progressing well, with plant availability already exceeding schedule, daily processing tonnages increasing as planned and concentrate grades continuing to improve as the operational team fine-tunes plant performance.
Larvotto Resources managing director Ron Heeks said: “As the first of the three products the plant produces, the focus has been on the antimony circuit. With the antimony circuit now operating at a steady rate, we will broaden our focus to optimise gold concentrate and gold doré production.”
The Hillgrove project, 23 kilometres east of Armidale in northern NSW, already hosts a significant mineral resource of 1.7 million ounces of gold equivalent at an impressive grade of 7.4 grams per tonne (g/t) gold equivalent, ranking it among the world’s top ten antimony deposits and the biggest in Australia.
With the antimony circuit now humming, Larvotto is turning its attention to Hillgrove's precious metal streams. The company says preparations for a first gold concentrate shipment are now nearing completion, with the production of gold doré bars also on the near-term agenda.
And there’s a third string to Hillgrove’s bow in the form of tungsten, another critical mineral caught in a tightening global market. Hillgrove’s planned future tungsten stream is riding against a backdrop of Chinese supply dominance, increasing export controls and a rapidly appreciating price environment.
Larvotto says ongoing metallurgical testwork on its tungsten mineralisation continues to deliver positive results, with the company now narrowing down its preferred processing equipment and flowsheet as it targets the start of tungsten production in 2027.
The transition from developer to producer is a notoriously difficult path to navigate; however, with its first product out of the gate, cash flowing in and two more high-value commodities lining up behind it, Larvotto could be heading into the new year with serious momentum and plenty of production to ramp things up.
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By Andrew Todd
