United States Antimony Corporation (UAMY) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the United States Antimony Corporation's 2021 Annual Shareholders Meeting. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. We will turn over for questions once the presentation is finished. I will now turn the conference over to your host, John Gustavsen, CEO. You may begin.

Good morning. I'm John Gustavsen. Most of you know me as Gus, the Interim Chief Executive Officer of the United States Antimony Corporation. On behalf of our Board of Directors, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders. We are happy to have you with us today. Joining me on the call today is President and Executive Director of Latin America, Russell Lawrence. Also with us today by phone are [ Emily White ], a representative from Issuer Direct, which is serving as our Inspector of Elections; and Nick Taylor and [ Megan Kelly ] from Stoel Rives, our outside legal counsel. Emily, can you read the results of the election?

The inspector of elections reports that there are 72,609,839 shares of common stock present and voting at this meeting in person or by proxy. The inspector also reports that all directors named in the proxy statement have been elected by a plurality vote. The selection of Assure CPA, LLC has been ratified for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2022. The compensation of our named executive officers has been approved by a majority vote. A formal report of the inspector of election detailing the results of the voting on each proposal will be told with the minutes of this meeting -- filed with the minutes of this meeting. And now, Russell Lawrence will report on events of 2021 and some more recent events.

Thanks, Emily. Well, good morning. We had an incredible year in 2021. First, I'm going to review the most notable events of 2021, and then I'm going to highlight the events that have come after 2021 that are most notable. So let's see. In Q1 of 2021, we performed 2 separate capital raises. The total of the 2 raises was around $20 million. This money enabled the company to do all of the following. Number one, address, retire and, in some instances, renegotiate several previous large and threatening sources of outstanding debt; number two, leverage and barter on certain contracts, resulting in a much -- in much better agreements for the company; number three, give much deserved raises to our workforce and crews in Montana, Idaho and Mexico; number four, raise our starting wages to attract and retain labor in an extremely tight labor market; number five, initiate a proper geological, geochemical and geophysical survey to our low squares property in Cadereyta, Mexico; number six, to source and hire a new Chief Financial Officer, Kelly Stopher; number seven, to source and hire a group of highly experienced and qualified directors largely responsible for the guidance of the company; number eight, send representatives to domestic locations in foreign countries to negotiate supply agreements; number nine, to source and higher competent and qualified managerial and sales personnel, such as Gretchen Lawrence in Bear River Zeolite sales and Mitzi Hart as Plant Secretary and Antimony sales, replacing both Marilyn Sink, who worked for US Antimony for decades here in Montana and passed away in late 2021 and also the previous salesperson for Antimony, both of us -- both of those people have us in an essentially sold-out condition; and number ten, to pay for the construction of a new warehouse and shop at Bear River Zeolite to pay for new hammer mill, jaw crusher, haul truck, loader and to continue improvements and expansion of the Bear River Zeolite and all of our other facilities. Additionally, a collaboration agreement with Perpetua Resources was signed in 2021 regarding the processing of concentrates to be generated from their Stibnite mine in Idaho upon receiving their permit. With USAC's acquisition and deconstruction of the LANXESS laurel smelter in Reynosa, Mexico in 2019, USAC now owns and operates the only dedicated antimony smelter permitted for the processing of sulfide concentrates in North America. US Antimony in 2021 signed a letter of interest with Ambri to supply antimony for their liquid metal batteries and have purchased equipment here at the Montana facility. We've tested it and perfected the procedure for producing acceptable size, shape and quality of antimony for their purposes. Our antimony has been approved by Ambri, and we have shipped them increasing quantity since 2021. Finally, the price of antimony throughout 2021 moved from a low of around $3.20 per pound in January to around $5.10 per pound by December. Okay. That covers 2021. Here are some recent notable events for the company. We had our first profitable quarter in Q1 of 2022 in years. That profit alone for that quarter exceeded any annual profit as far back as I could look in 16 years. As of Monday this week, the geophysical program has been initiated at Los Juarez. The geological and geochemical work has been completed, and soil and rock samples that have been collected have been sent for analysis to a certified lab in Durango, Mexico. The company is engaged in advanced negotiations for supply and/or mine ownership with several key antimony properties inside Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The company sold 220 metric truckloads in Q1 and 1 in Q2 of ingots that we produced from Mexican feed and shipped directly from our Mexican shelter -- smelter, excuse me, to clients in the U.S. This is an enormous advantage in that it saves on our previous model of shipping it up to Thompson Falls and then finishing it here. An experiment involving [indiscernible] grade antimony sulfide ore from our Porto Blanco -- at our Porto Blanco facility was conducted, yielding several dry tons of concentrate suitable for the synthesis into antimony trisulfide for use in ammunition primers. This ore was sourced from our mines in the Soyatal district in Cadereyta, Mexico. The price of antimony so far in 2022 dropped slightly from a high of $6.53 to $5.94, but has recently firmed up again to about $6.26 per pound. To put this in perspective, the past 16-year average metal price was $3.78 per pound. The company in Q2 retired the remainder of a $1.4 million debt to a Canadian supplier, and that is my summary of the recent notable events for 2022. And with that, I'd like to open it up for questions. And Jen, I wonder if you could review the procedure to submit questions.

[Operator Instructions] Gus, you might maybe see if there's any questions on the panel, maybe.

We're looking here, and we don't see any questions so far. I think maybe we'll just keep waiting here another 5, 10 minutes.

Okay. No problem at all.

Okay. Let me refresh here. Okay. We have a question here, and I'm going to not read who it's from just so that no one -- we think it prudent to do it that way. The question is, what is the outlook for the company in the second half of the year and going forward into 2023? Okay. I can't legally speak about our numbers before they're published. But in a general sense, we -- that the antimony price is going to remain firm, if not go up. And that is based on what we're hearing about the restrictions on Chinese supply. But also, there are some rumors about the mine in China, the Twinkling Star closing down. Of course, that rumor has circulated for years and years, so we can't attest to the verity of that claim. But if you're to look at the past performance of the stock -- or not the stock but the antimony price, it looks firm to us. And that, of course, is the main parameter in terms of our antimony sales that govern the outlook for the company. But I'm very positive about the outlook of the company, given what the price and the nature of the economy is and the nature of the market for antimony. Gus, do you want to say anything about that? And that's antimony. On BRZ, the outlook is excellent. We've been putting money towards BRZ. And I can just tell you that there are a number of things that look very, very promising to us, and I'll review those real briefly here. Number one is we basically had a big shakeup in our management there that has resulted in a much better management process. For one thing, I have a mine manager, and we went over a procedure that's long been debated whether we can make more ore, blasting or ripping. And in fact, we've done 2 or 3 different experiments now comparing the yield of mined tonnage by blasting versus ripping. And we found that if you rip correctly, we can exceed the tonnage that we yield by ripping. And to that end, we've got a D9 and a D8 that are being retrofitted with updated rippers and 2 mine operators, and that saves an enormous amount of expense on explosives. We do use explosives as an auxiliary now, but the main news on Bear River Zeolite is that we've enhanced our ability to yield rock for the plant. Additionally, as a byproduct of our main product, which is a 1440-sized material, we make what we call minus 40. And there is an increasing market for that along with -- like I say, with Gretchen Lawrence has basically got us sold out. We have a bearing down right now in 1 of our 2 lines that we're replacing. But we intend to increase the amount of money we pump into Bear River Zeolite and expand the operation with a specific eye to fording breakdowns that shut the plant down. That's something that for years has been done. I want to get basically a spare cone pressure, a spare jaw crusher and have enough auxiliary parts and lines that we never have to shut down. Now that isn't recognized right now, but that's our plan. And without getting too excited, I am very positive about the outlook of U.S. antimony going forward. Let's see here. I'm refreshing. Okay. We've got a bunch of questions here. Okay. The next one is, when do you anticipate the production of gold. Okay. There are 2 basic answers to that, and I'm going to also ask us to say a few words. But the way the situation is we already process precious metals as a byproduct of a supply that we get from a North American supplier, and we send dore about once a quarter from that feed. And then -- so that's one part. We're already producing gold, but also the Los Juarez property has gold. And we have shipped, as you'll recall, last year, 2,000 tons of ore from that property to our Puerto Blanco flotation facility. We processed about half of it, and we generated concentrates that do bear gold. We're waiting to get enough of concentrates to ship through -- up to Madero, which will go to our caustic leach. And then we'll have a very sequestered antimony, gold, silver concentrate that will be shipped up here to Montana. In a sense, the answer to the question is we're already producing gold, but I just thought I'd outline where we stand right now and what we're -- what we plan to do of this, the production of gold. Okay. Next question. What is your expectation for the sales and growth of antimony trisulfide? Okay. Let me just review the past on this. Prior to the previous management, John Lawrence, we had received, I think it was 25 to 35 tons of powdered antimony trisulfide from our partner, I think it came from China. It came from China, and the powder was oversized and undersized mesh sizes that were not useful for ammunition fibers. Okay. So we just, this quarter, completed the synthesis of purified antimony trisulfide lump for that. Now John Lawrence had worked out an arrangement with the partner at that time to get paid in advance, and we sat on that for years and years. So we've got that process. And I'll just say we're very excited about the sales and growth of antimony trisulfide because three reasons. Number one, we're still processing and now we're processing for live profit, meaning our partner is paying us based on what we shipped in back, and that's number one. Number two is we went through some real growing pains regarding the technical details of processing the antimony trisulfide. We have the guy in charge of this here, Tony Light, had a nightmare because we had a number of problems with the crucible braking and flooding the chamber. We had a number of problems with off-gassing attacking the heating elements, and we'd have to strip the entire furnace and replace the elements and clean it. And we've gotten over that by a number of countermeasures that we've implemented. And for one thing we had, I think it was a silicon carbide crucibles that we were originally using, and they would -- I can bore you to tears here, but they were breaking. We've got a different type of crucible that we sourced. I just ordered 8 of them. We've received 2 or 3 of them. They -- whereas the previous life of the crucibles is around 38 pores. This one is -- we're already crossing 70 or 80. We're anticipating at least 100 pores of crucible, if not more. That, in addition to us implementing a low-pressure introduction of air into the chamber that is around the crucible and inside the -- in contact with the heating elements has flushed out the problem with outgassing. And just to convince you that my emotion regarding the expectation of sales and growth of antimony trisulfide is real. We've ordered 2 more. We already have 2 electric furnaces for this procedure. They're both outfitted, and we've ordered 2 more. They should be arriving any time, as far as I understand. So now the third aspect of the excitement about the sales of the growth of the antimony trisulfide stems from this experiment I mentioned in the introduction with the Soyatal. We're looking at that as specifically a potential source for antimony trisulfide. Whereas before, its production for just direct smelting ore was not sufficient for us. Anyway, we've retained those claims. And the other one I want to mention is whereas we can source regular antimony and smelt it and produce either antimony trioxide or antimony ingot for sale, if we produce and have a mine that is devoid of sufficient contaminants for the production of antimony trisulfide, our margin is much greater. In other words, our difference between our production cost and our sales price is dollars greater than what would be just for the sale of antimony. So that's why we're interested in that. And Gus, you might mention our situation with the DLA.

With the DLA, we have a contract with the DLA to provide samples of antimony trisulfide produced from mines in Mexico. We submitted the first sample a couple of years ago, and it went through testing at the Picatinny Arsenal and was approved for use of military ammunition. We submitted a second sample quite a few months ago, at least 6 months ago. And as of 2 weeks ago, we acquired with Picatinny, and they have not finished testing yet. However, confidence is looking like they're going to be putting pressure to get this stuff tested because they have finally woken up that the only source for antimony trisulfide has been China, and China has not shipped any now for 3 years. So the U.S. is completely without a supplier of antimony trisulfide until we get qualified.

Okay. Thanks, Gus. That actually covers several of these other questions here. One was, can we speak of the latest DoD transaction supply activity? And I think you just covered that. Okay. Okay. Here's one. Do you see an increase of orders from other vendors of antimony? And I don't look at that, frankly. I look at just what we can sell. And I do think -- let me just see if I understand this question correctly. Increase of orders from other vendors. Vendors or -- I think maybe that's misworded.

I don't know. But I mean we don't sell to other vendors. We sell directly to users, customers.

Exactly. In other words, we don't really broker our antimony.

No, except in one circumstance.

Yes, that's right. And that's just to help us with essentially shipping.

Yes.

Okay. In terms of -- can you -- here's a question from [ Demetrius ], who is a very loyal and a good friend. Can you open the phone line for questions? And I don't think we can, Demetrius. I understand that the questions on this call will just be submitted by text. Is that correct, Jen?

Yes, that's correct. The calls are all coming in via the webcast.

Okay, okay. Let's see. Okay. Moving on to the next one. Los Juarez, joint venture potential? DLA is testing on completed on 6 batches? Let's take the second one of those questions first. I think just...

Okay. So those samples need to be submitted serially. We have 2 in place, as I said before. We have 4 more samples here at Thompson Falls ready to go when that second sample is approved.

Was that the third sample or second? I thought that was the third.

One was lost.

Oh, that's right. Okay. So that's the answer to the second part. And in terms of the Los Juarez joint venture potential. Just briefly, we are looking at that, and we have several potentials there. But it was deemed that it's too early for that, and that's why we decided to go ahead with a -- they call it the 3Gs, the geophysical, geochemical and geophysical study that's underway. Why? Because we'd like to have the imaging of the mineralized nature of the deposit. Had I had that when I drilled way back before we did the raises, we would have been in a lot better -- I have a lot better idea of where to place the drill and which angle. But as it is, we are considering that, but we're basically waiting for the results for the -- from this geophysical study and the geological study. And at that point, we're going to be in a much better position to either go ahead by ourselves or attract a JV partner.

We have spoken with potentials.

Yes, we have. But -- and we just deemed it was a little bit early, but there have been interest. In fact, there's an interest in buying the Puerto Blanco facility from us. To that end, there's a lot of things here that require a permit that we've worked for years obtaining, whether we're talking about the Puerto Blanco and, for example, the cyanide leach permit, or Madero and all of the air permits and smelting permits. So when I hear that other people may use us until which time they can make their own smelter, I've got to say, best of luck. Okay. Let's see. Next question. Do you see forward profitable numbers, better earnings if the price of antimony stays the same or better? As I say here in the introduction, if we're right that the antimony price stays firm, we do see a positive -- much positive future. That said, we've got some outriggers. And like they say in investing, you've got to have a diverse portfolio. We've got -- in addition to antimony, which is our bread and butter, we've got precious metal. We've got Bear River Zeolite. And it's been suggested that we could use our Puerto Blanco facility, for example, for the processing of other ores, namely zinc. We're not entertaining that right now. We're focusing on our antimony and precious metals, and I can't speak about future numbers so I won't because I don't want to do it before we file the actual next 10-Q. Okay. Do I have some news -- next question. Do I have some news about the Perpetua project? And the answer is very recently here, I think, 1.5 weeks ago, they received their air quality permit, which is good news for them. Gus, you've been reading more about the...

They also just announced they're going to be doing some cleanup of some water on site.

That's right.

And we actually contacted them about using Zeolite. Their comment was it's premature right now. But perhaps when they're mining, they would be wanting to use Zeolite. The Zeolite is used in mining to absorb ammonia from the ammonium nitrate explosives that are used.

Okay. The next question is, do you have any theories on why the share price does not seem to reflect the positive news stories of the past 6 months or so that the company is sharing? It's a good question. I've thought a lot about it. I don't have a good answer. What I can say is that more people would read the 10-K, I think that's -- the numbers speak for themselves. I will say that the volatility in the stock has been, so much as I can tell, very low as a comparison to the past. And I -- we're basically focused on operations and creating value. This is our philosophy. Our philosophy is that the value of the stock should be the direct result of the company's performance and not the indirect results of efforts to advertise or promote the value of the stock, and so that's my answer to that question. Let's see. Next question. LANXESS smelter condition? When will we see monthly production increase if you have new sources of supply? Okay. First of all, Gus and another person that works for the company, [ Leo Jackson ] went down, I think it was 2018 and '19.

'18 and '19, yes.

And they headed up the dismantling of that smelter. In a sense, we were paid to take it and dismantle it. And we did that, and I believe we inherited the name -- some of the names that were under LANXESS.

We identified it. We inherited all the trademarks and the names.

Okay. So Gus sent that -- those -- as much of the smelting equipment that we deemed valuable, and there was a lot to me at Madero. And I was working there, and we outfitted 3 long rotary furnaces there, and they're all operational, and 2 of them are operating. And in addition to that, we -- as a result of the previous contract with Hillgrove, we expanded the smelter there to 17 small rotary furnaces, and we have 1 long rotary furnace on deck. So our capacity there is enormous. I have the numbers, but I don't have them in front of me in terms of the production. But roughly speaking, I just know this from memory. We can process -- I wanted to add [Audio Gap] equipment from LANXESS. We were able to process 5,000 to 6,000 pounds per 24-hour period per LRF, compare that with about 1,000 pounds per 24-hour period with an SRF. So the condition of the LANXESS is that it's been dismantled and no longer is essentially in Reynosa and no longer exists.

In fact, the property has been sold.

Okay. And then in terms of when will we see monthly production increases. As soon as we get more supply. And do I anticipate more supply? Yes, I do. When? All I can say is soon. Okay. I just refreshed here. Hold on a minute. Next question. Okay. This is something that's been kind of -- the next question is investor relations to institutional investors. Just telling you where we are here. When I sat down here at John Lawrence's desk the day after his death and at his behest the previous night, I very quickly realized that there were so many calls coming in from investors that there was very little time remaining to work on operations, plant performance, talking with personnel, not to mention expansion, equipment inspections, et cetera. And in short, I didn't have any time nor Gus for critical items that keep a small operating mining company alive. Notwithstanding John Lawrence's extraordinary talent, vision and effort, there were a host of items that had been neglected because of the amount of time spent on the phone. The decision was taken to vector investor calls away from headquarters to Joe Bardswich, a director, after he became available to allow Gus and I to focus on operations. Additionally, the decision was taken unless material significant or necessary press releases needed to be published to present a bimonthly operational update with a particular focus on presenting our investors with past tense rather than future tense verbs. It is clear that both these decisions have resulted in a much improved performance as is evidenced by the trajectory of our financial numbers spanning the matching time frame for the implementation of these policies. That is my best answer to investor relations, and that's where we stand. Okay. Yes. Okay. What employee positions is UAM hiring for? Okay. Let me think for a moment. First of all, the backbone of our company are our people. And we have had a hell of a time getting laborers. And all politics aside, there have been in the past year, especially in 2021, there have actually been government checks being sent to people that disincentivize them from working. And in addition to that, for example, here in Thompson Falls, there was a grant given where the municipal sewage is being updated. The government is paying people $43 an hour starting for that job, and that's another source where we're competing with somebody that we can't pay that much money and stay alive. So it's been an extraordinary challenge for us to get reliable people. And the net effect is we have got and honed a very good crew, both here and I did so in Mexico and in Bear River Zeolite. We've got people that have a work ethic, and they're very -- we're very proud of our crew to focus it back on what positions we're hiring for, furnace operators, people in packaging at Bear River Zeolite. In Mexico, we don't have the labor problem that we have here in the United States. And so we're -- we don't need anyone there right now. In terms of upper management, we're probably going to be getting another -- and I think we're going to be interviewing several potentials for an additional Board person, and we want highly talented and experienced candidates. And I think we've got a few on deck.

I think that answers that question.

Okay. Let's see. Okay. This is a great question. The next question is, iron in the Soyatal concentrates, how quickly can the circuit be built and integrated? Demetrius, I've got what I believe an ironclad solution to coin a term on that one. And whereas our experiment involved -- I'll just -- I don't want to bore you, but I do think it's important to tell you the where and the why for. On our Puerto Blanco flotation facility, anything greater than about 10% antimony overwhelms with our reagents, the float cells. And as a consequence, any ore that we want to float, let's say the ore from, for example, from Los Juarez, let's say, we get a batch that was greater than 10%. What we actually have to do is dilute that ore down to below or at 10%.

And we're not the only one.

Yes.

I'm familiar with several concentrators during my career, and most floatation mills see the optimum percentage of antimony in the ore they received as 3%.

And to back up Gus on that, there's another flotation in Zimapon. They told us the exact same thing. So it's the nature of the flotation procedure and the reagent concentration. So anyway, long story short, we did this experiment with the 80 tons. In order to investigate whether that ore, which is a mixed oxide sulfide could be used for the production of trisulfide, the answer seems to be yes. Now having conducted that, I shipped unsorted deliberately between 5% and 8% ore. The average of the 80 tons was something around 6%, Demetrius. It floated very well. And as I say, the iron came in at 0.9%, which is a little high. Now that I've established that, my plan is actually to high-grade the ore so we're not shipping [ gang ] and ship the high-grade ore from Soyatal to Puerto Blanco and actually buy gravel or use a host rock there to dilute it down to 6% for flotation. And my guess, and there's a lot of reason for this, is that the iron problem will be solved because most of the iron is probably coming from the host rock. Now if that doesn't work, I've looked at suppression or they call them depression techniques, and I think we can solve that problem. So very excited about the potential for Soyatal being an auxiliary source for antimony trisulfide. Okay. Going to the next question. On the last update, you mentioned 2 new furnaces. Did we pay for them or did the customer? And purpose was for trisulfide. That's correct. The purpose was for trisulfide. We paid for them. Okay. Next question. Any updates on deal with Ambri? Let's see. We -- as I mentioned in the introduction, we had -- we were basically multiple crushing the size. And Ambri has permitted our source of antimony for supplying them. I should just back up to the fundamentals. We signed a letter of interest with Ambri. And since that time, we've been on the phone with them, and we've been selling them antimony. But we bought a couple of pieces of equipment here to help us specifically produce Ambri shot, they call it. But it's not really shot, it's crushed antimony. And they're very happy with it. In fact, we've got another order due here in September for them. So in terms of the latest from Ambri, I haven't talked to them for about a month, but everything was moving forward. They were actually expanding. Now my memory is gone here, but they were going to make a big facility with their capital raise that they made. And the main guy that I have talked to, [ Vector Gizhoff ], because he was so busy, it was [ David Bramell ], who we initially talked to and negotiated with. And that's very -- as far as I know, Ambri's doing very well and is expanding and anticipating increased orders. So that's the answer to that one. Gus, you might want to take this one. It would be great if you could update us on the new projects with the U.S. government. But I think we are...

That's the only project we have is the ongoing antimony trisulfide.

Let me take this next one, Demetrius. Is Soyatal owned outright with no questions regarding legal ownership? That is correct, Demetrius. And just to let you know, we were to -- John Lawrence was considering advocating legal ownership of the Soyatal based on the tonnage and the cost for shipping. It was before he considered whether we could do trisulfide. At that time, the -- there was a bunch of personal disputes with the people that we had bought those from. And they wanted them back, but the mother died, and it was a mess. But I have it on a strict authority that those are ours. In fact, we just paid the -- all the 4 or 5 mining claim taxes for those very recently. So the answer is, without a doubt, they're ours. Okay. The next question is DLA. What is DLA? The DLA's department?

The DLA is actually a replacement of what some of you might remember, the GSA, General Services and Administration. And DLA is Defense Logistics Agency. It is part of the Department of Defense, and it is charged with procurement of all sorts of materials for the military, from basic metals to hardware to airplanes to whatever. They also occasionally sell off what they feel is surplus material, so they're kind of the contracting arm of the Department of Defense.

Okay. Great. Next question. For those shareholders and interested parties that could not attend today, where can we find a replay of today's meeting? Jen, do you know the answer to that?

It's [ Kristen ]. It will be available on the same link as the live event. So about an hour after the event, and they'll be able to get to the replay.

Okay. On the same link. Okay. Great. Thank you, Kristen. Okay. DLA has taken almost 3 years to test 1 batch of trisulfide. Okay. They actually, on the day my dad died, approved the first sample, and that was June 16, 2020. But it does -- the question says -- sounds odd. I agree. They're all very good people, but I don't want to say anything negative. But it was frustrating, even getting them to the point where we could send samples in.

We worked on that. I personally started working on it more than 10 years ago at another company I ran. And John and [ Matt Kane ], the ex sales person here, and I worked on it ever since I got here. And I think we signed the contract in 2018. They just move exceedingly slow.

Okay. I don't see any additional questions. Hold on a minute. Let me verify that. Kristen, I don't see any questions underneath the last one by Demetrius and the clarification on [ NIM ] users. Do you see any more questions?

No, that should be the last. Nothing else has come in.

Okay. How about we wait a couple of minutes just to see?

Yes.

And if not, then we'll wrap it up.

It does look like there's a couple more questions. If you click on the next button, they're going to appear for you.

Okay. Let's see. I got -- I keep hitting refresh, but I don't see where the next is. Okay. Excuse me, I see it. Okay. There's a whole bunch here. Okay. We're just reviewing here. Hold on just a second. Let me -- there's just a whole bunch here. Let me take one at a time here. It has been suggested -- here's a question. At $0.40, why not buy back $1 million worth of stock? It would show confidence. We've actually considered that. It's on the table, but there are a number of -- it's kind of a divided verdict, whether we're going to do that or not. I'm not saying we're not going to do it, and I'm not saying we are going to do it. But right now, there's some things that I'm not at liberty to talk about that might be a better use of our money. But stand by. That's -- it's on the table, Demetrius. Okay. Number -- the next one. Do you have any plans to generate more interest from investors in the 10-K? That would be a method to generate more investor value for share price. Okay. Our [indiscernible] our performance and let the stock follow and not vice versa is by way of this meeting, calling it to investors to take a look at our 10-K and our 10-Q because both of them are jam-packed with very, very indisputably good numbers. We may decide -- it's been suggested that we should again have a quarterly investor call. We're considering that, but we need to take care of some additional Board members and, frankly, some contracts and agreements where we're looking at before we decide to do that. But unlike before where we would promise what we were going to do, our redirection of the company is aimed at saying what we have done and not what we're going to do. Okay. Let's see. The next one, can you help Ambri if they buy antimony metal from China with arsenic? It's my understanding that their battery -- their requirement for the antimony for use in their batteries has very specific and strict contaminant limitations. And I don't think they're going to -- of course, the main source of antimony historically has been from China. And -- but in terms of their contaminants, I think they can clean it up.

I can speak from experience. I've purchased a lot of Chinese antimony metal in the past. And in general, their antimony metal is very clean and has very little arsinic and lead.

So the -- just to let you know the -- on that question with Ambri, what the model would be is they prefer to source it domestically. And we're supplying it up until where they break out, and that's our hope and their plan. If -- let's see. Gus, I've been informed that you didn't get heard very well. Could you repeat that?

Which one?

On the antimony from China being...

I, in the past, have purchased, well, thousands, tens of thousands of tons of Chinese antimony metal. And we tested it very accurately with some great sensitive instruments, and we always found that the metal was very clean, had very little arsenic and very little lead. The little contaminant there was a concern was bismuth, but they have been under control now.

The model for U.S. antimony is to supply Ambri. And if they break out into the quantities that we're hoping and they're hoping, at that point, we have a collaboration agreement, as I stated in the introduction with Perpetua, and that would be the main source of domestic supply of antimony for Ambri or for anyone else. But with the specific intent of supplying Ambri with Perpetua antimony, and we would basically smelt it at our smelter at Madero in Mexico. That's our kind of agreement with both parties and understanding. I should say not agreement but understanding. Okay. Next question. Are there any plans for the company to buy back shares in the future? Okay? We covered that. We're considering it. As I say, I think there might be something that would rival that, okay?

The next 2 are the same really.

Yes. The anticipation of government projects.

The only thing I can say there is as a result in our contact with the DLA on antimony trisulfide, they have recently asked us if we could provide them antimony metal if necessary. They send out a yearly canvas, I guess, you want to call it, asking what other products that vendors can supply. We have always replied that we can supply the DLA with antimony trioxide and with antimony ingot.

Okay. Let's see. We're just reviewing here if we've answered all the questions that came in. And I think we have, so we'll give it another couple of minutes here to see if we have more questions. Kristen, I don't see any more questions. Do you?

I do not. No.

Okay. I'll tell you what, it's coming up the top of the hour. Let's give it one more minute. And if we don't get any questions, we'll adjourn.

Yes, yes.

Should I read that?

Yes.

Okay. Let's see. We do have another question. Says I've asked this twice. Did not know this was family-owned. So I do not mean to be insulting when asking about the offer to sell. I am a new shareholder, and I want to thank you for answering my questions. Okay. It says I'll be increasing my investment, all the best. Thank you very much, John. And it's not family-owned. It's a publicly-traded company. It's just that my father started this company in 1967. I was born in 1968 and have worked for him ever since. So I'm -- both Gus and I are very highly invested in this company. Gus has dealt antimony since he was way back, and he is the guru of antimony. He's been to China, in Kazakhstan and all over the world. And I've been in and out of furnaces and built the Madero smelter and the Puerto Blanco facility and flew all around Mexico looking at properties with John Lawrence.

We haven't -- i haven't heard an offer to sell.

Yes, in terms of the -- we haven't really had an offer to sell.

No. You want me to answer that question directly. We've had -- no one offered to sell us nor to buy us. So...

We did have interest in trying to sell Bear River Zeolite 2 years ago.

Two years ago, right after John's death.

What we decided was it would be either illegal or impossible to do so as it's a wholly-owned subsidiary of [ US An ].

And we think it has a lot more value than what was being offered.

Absolutely. What was being offered way lower than we believe it's worth. Okay. I think the last ones are comments and not questions. We really appreciate everybody being on board. Gus, go ahead.

Well, with no further questions, then this concludes the business to be conducted today. The stockholders' meeting is officially adjourned.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.