Hillgrove's first antimony leaves the mine gate

Larvotto Resources delivered its first antimony concentrate from Hillgrove on 14 October 2026. The 68 tonnes were collected at the mine gate by the trader Wogen Resources, and the delivery triggers a part-payment.

Wogen had expected the first shipment in September, and it came in October. Where Hillgrove's antimony is smelted is Wogen's decision, not Larvotto's.

Wogen Resources, a London-based metals trader, holds exclusive global sales rights to concentrate from Hillgrove, 23 kilometres east of Armidale in New South Wales, for the first seven years of mining, under a binding agreement signed in December 2024. Larvotto Resources (ASX: LRV) has not disclosed the size of the first payment, and a second and final payment follows once independent assays confirm the metal content.

Neither company has said where the first load is headed. In November 2025 Ron Heeks, Larvotto's managing director, said Wogen would sell to smelters in Asia outside China or in Europe, and named India as the largest smelting market outside China. The form the antimony takes beyond that, and its end use, have yet to be revealed.

The announcement gives no grade for this load. Larvotto's release of 21 September 2026 said the flotation circuit is designed to produce a 60 per cent antimony concentrate, and the company now states that grades are still improving. How much antimony the 68 tonnes holds will be set by the assays that settle the second payment. That payment may also carry deductions for impurities such as arsenic, which smelters penalise above set limits; the terms are not public.

Larvotto reports that plant availability is ahead of schedule and that daily processing tonnages are rising in line with plan, but gives no figures for either. Heeks said the plant's first priority had been the antimony circuit, which is now running at a steady rate, and that attention now turns to gold concentrate and gold doré.

Larvotto is preparing its first gold concentrate shipment to Glencore International AG, which takes about 15,000 dry tonnes a year under a separate seven-year agreement. Tungsten testwork continues in Australia and Canada, with processing anticipated in 2027.

Guidance is unchanged at about 4,900 tonnes of antimony a year over an initial eight-year mine life. Bulls N' Bears' report of the shipment called that 7 per cent of global supply. As this publication set out on 28 September, it is 4.5 per cent of the 110,000 tonnes of world mine production that the US Geological Survey estimates for 2025.

The 14 October load closes a run of milestones that began with the Wogen agreement almost two years earlier.

Source: Larvotto Resources announcements, as reported by the outlets listed in Sources.

The next figures will come from Larvotto's quarterly reports, and the next decision that changes Hillgrove's scale sits with the New South Wales planning department.

Where the concentrate is smelted carries no date. It will be known only if Wogen or Larvotto chooses to disclose.

Larvotto's shares rose 3.4 per cent to A$0.91 on 14 October, the day of the delivery, then gave back the gain and more the next day as resource stocks sold off after hotter-than-expected US inflation figures raised expectations of another Federal Reserve rate rise. They closed the week at A$0.87 on 16 October, 48 per cent below their peak of A$1.67 on 27 January, valuing Larvotto at about A$453m. Its peers have fallen further from their 2026 highs: United States Antimony by 77 per cent and American Tungsten & Antimony by 79 per cent.

The slide took hold on 30 January, when a metals sell-off followed President Trump's nomination of Kevin Warsh to chair the Federal Reserve, a choice markets read as hawkish. The war with Iran, which began on 28 February, compounded it, pushing oil above $100 a barrel and US inflation to 3.7 per cent in September, and the US central bank raised rates on 16 September for the first time in three years. Investors appear to be pricing the rate outlook ahead of operating progress. For antimony miners the pressure comes from both sides, as input costs rise while the antimony price pulls back; United States Antimony cut its 2026 revenue guidance in August on lower antimony prices. Larvotto's relative outperformance may owe something to Hillgrove's gold, which makes up about 43 per cent of the mine's expected output over its first five years in Larvotto's gold-equivalent terms. Gold is about a quarter below its January peak but still trades about 75 per cent above the US$2,400 an ounce assumed in the base case of Larvotto's 2025 feasibility study, while antimony has fallen back towards the study's US$25,000 a tonne. Hillgrove also runs on grid power, which Larvotto says limits its exposure to diesel costs.

United States Antimony Corporation, which holds the Defense Logistics Agency contract of up to $245m for antimony ingot awarded in September 2025, says it is Larvotto's largest shareholder. It bought about 10 per cent of the company, 51.7 million shares, on market for US$37.2m in October 2025, then proposed a takeover at six of its own shares for every 100 Larvotto shares, worth A$1.40 a share when announced. Larvotto's board rejected the proposal later that month, after the implied value had fallen to A$1.13. United States Antimony still held the stake on 30 June 2026, its latest quarterly report to the Securities and Exchange Commission shows, and reports no board seat and no significant influence over Larvotto.

Whether the gap between Hillgrove's progress and Larvotto's share price narrows will be tested in the December quarter, the first to report antimony sales.