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

Thanks so much, and welcome, everybody; I appreciate all of you joining our conference call this afternoon; we're eager to bring you up to speed today regarding everything happening at US Antimony. Joining me on the line today are Joe Bardswich, a Board member and Executive Vice President, and also the company's Chief Mining Engineer; Rick Isaak, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Jonathan Miller, our Vice President overseeing Investor Relations. Each of them will speak briefly about their own divisions today. During last year's call, we described 2023 as a transition year. As this morning's press release shows, the year just ended marked a major turning point for US Antimony. Since the start of last year, we've brought in considerable bench strength. That covers a new controller, five new Vice Presidents, one Senior Vice President, one Executive Vice President and two Sales Personnel for the zeolite division. These professionals are the people moving your company to the next level. This morning we reported record revenues of $14.9 million, an increase of 72% year-over-year. Cost of sales declined 5% year-over-year, while gross profit rose 204% year-over-year. Now I'd like to hand things over to Rick Isaak, who will summarize and provide further detail on our financial performance for fiscal 2024. Rick?

Thanks, Gary. First, I'd like to share some comments about our overall results. To kick things off, the way we presented Mexico in our SEC filings changed during 2024, so I'll spend a moment explaining those adjustments. As you're all aware, we closed the Mexico business in Q1 after enduring losses for many years, and for the first, second, and third quarters of 2024, we disclosed those results as a discontinued operation in a footnote inside our 10-Qs. Following that, in Q4 of 2024 we restarted the Mexico business, since antimony's market price and demand had climbed considerably, and we included its results under continuing operations in the 10-K for 2024, consistent with how Mexico's results were shown in the 2023 10-K. Consequently, on the consolidated P&L, sales reached $14.9 million for fiscal year 2024, as Gary mentioned, a 72% gain versus the prior year. That came from both larger volumes sold and increased prices in our antimony and zeolite operations. As Gary emphasized, it's worth repeating that $14.9 million in sales was the highest level achieved since the company listed on the NYSE. For fiscal year 2024, gross profit came in at $3.5 million, versus a $3.3 million loss in 2023. That full swing into the black was the result of cost efficiencies and higher prices. On top of that, we instituted tight controls in Mexico while processing the remaining ore in 2024, which gave a substantial lift to gross profit from our met operations, along with the stronger antimony market price. I'll now walk through a few points on our antimony business. Antimony sales totaled $11.1 million in 2024, an increase of $5.2 million, or 88%, compared with 2023. Of that sales growth, about 60% is tied to the average price increase, while about 40% is tied to higher volume. The main driver behind these gains was stronger global demand for antimony, which we already covered in the earnings release. For a while now, our attention has been on taking advantage of that growing demand, and multiple efforts are underway to make that happen. The first of these was restarting operations in Mexico, which I mentioned before. Finished antimony products can be processed and sold at our Mexico facilities, where engineered production capacity reaches as much as 200 tons each month. On top of that, we are bringing in feed material for the Mexico operations from additional suppliers and upgrading the machinery and equipment there, and together these steps make antimony production in Mexico more cost-effective. We also kicked off work to expand the antimony processing facility we operate in Thompson Falls, Fontana. Also, we picked up some mining claims, which could let us eventually control a portion of the antimony we need. Turning to zeolite, that segment brought in $2.9 million of sales during 2024 — a gain of $0.5 million, or 19%, compared with 2023. That improvement split roughly evenly: volume accounted for one part, and the average price accounted for the other. As for zeolite gross profit in 2024, it landed at a loss of $0.6 million, largely because maintenance and repair costs rose substantially, and related expenses came along with them. As we've discussed on earlier earnings calls, those elevated costs were required to get older equipment and trucks back into working condition after years of neglect, and that produced an operational loss for 2024; even so, these upgrades boosted our production reliability and safety and will let us expand our Zeolite business; and during 2025, our focus is on profitable sales growth, and we brought on two sales personnel specifically for that purpose. All in all, 2024 was a year of substantial accomplishment. Turning to the numbers, 2024 was our best sales year since we went public on the NYSE, as we've mentioned. Gross profit swung from a $3.3 million loss in 2023 to a $3.5 million profit in 2024, while cash flow went from a $7.2 million decrease in 2023 to a $6.3 million increase in 2024. Looking at operations, the year opened with downtime issues at our zeolite plant, and by the end of it we had a facility that runs more reliably, delivers on time more often, and has stronger safety — all of which puts us in a position to grow. At the start, we were the only producer of antimony products within the US; by year's end, we had the ability to make those products in both the US and Mexico. We kicked things off with a single antimony ore supplier, and wrapped up with three. When the year began, we held zero US mining claims; when it ended, we held claims in the US and Canada — assets that could allow our antimony business to become more vertically integrated and expand what our company offers. Overall, our team is skilled and dedicated to improving this company, strengthening the nation's supply chain for critical minerals and materials, and increasing value for shareholders. Gary, I'll turn it back over to you.

Thanks, Rick. At this point, I'd like to invite Joe Bardswich to bring everybody up to speed on everything he and his group have been doing concerning our mining leases, in both Alaska and Canada. Joe?

All right, Gary — I figured I'd begin by talking about what's happening at Bear River Zeolite. For this world-class ore body, no resource and reserve calculation has ever existed. Absent that, our view is that we might even be able to achieve compliance with the new SEC S-K 1300 regulation that deals with reporting mineral reserves and resources. So to fix that situation, we ran a definition drill program in July of '24 — 80 holes, more than 6,700 feet in total. Spacing between holes came to roughly 100 feet, with most of them placed along roads that already existed and in other places that were simple to reach. From every drill hole, samples were taken at six foot intervals. That left us with over 1,100 samples, which were divided into portions appropriate for assay and then shipped to labs that are internationally recognized and well known and ISO certified — specifically ALS Global and SGS — for sample prep as well as analysis. Only a part of the privately leased ground was covered by this program, and none of the federal land included in our mining plains was part of it. A technical report that follows the S-K 1300 guidelines is now in preparation, with an independent qualified person serving as the primary officer, plus our specialist licensing of the proprietary Leapfrog resource calculation software along with myself handling secondary audits. A statement regarding the reserves that have been calculated will appear in the report. March 31st is the target date for finishing the report. While the drill was on site, the contractor was also hired to drill and blast a large area on the property's east side so those areas could be finished up and reclaimed at the same time as mining continued. From the blasted material, an estimated 63,000 tons of zeolite was expected — that's fishing for three or four more years of production at present rates, money in the bank there. After that, the old BRZ drill was sold, together with other condemned equipment, the city < > on the property for several years, basically eliminating an ISR. A loader was purchased, and along with the 40 ton articulated tractor with the excavator, those remain on site. The quality and reliability of our equipment fleet has been vastly improved, matching the plant improvements that have been made. Now switching to the Ontario Canada Cobalt property: it sits on the northwest edge of the Sudbury Basin. This basin, believed to have been caused by a large meteor impact, is the most prolific mineral producing area of Canada, mainly for nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum group metals since the late 1880s. Through an option agreement and our own smelting program, the claims we've acquired cover an area of more than 4,000 acres on the northwest edge of the basin. Small companies explored this area previously, and it includes showings of high grade cobalt, nickel business and other critical minerals with economic interest along the 3 mile < > trend. The standout result from the Iron Mask showing, together with a historic drill hole, was a fuel call interval measuring 4 feet that assayed 16% cobalt and 8% nickel. That lies roughly 2 miles south of the cobalt shaft, where the Ontario Department Mines documented a 6-ton ore sample grading 15% cobalt along with 9 ounces of silver per ton that was shipped during the 1930s. By comparison, the typical grade for cobalt producers sits around the 1% range. This ground is blanketed by thick sands, gravel, Muskeg and small lakes, and those conditions have held back earlier exploration teams trying to map the local geology and pin down a definitive understanding of it. Our view is that these high grade showings aren't isolated occurrences, so we've concentrated on establishing how far the mineralization extends, especially the cobalt; to that end we've put together a geology team out of the Sunbury area, led by Dr. Fred Breaks, who retired not long ago from the Ontario Geological Survey. Once the snow has melted, we'll start a program of excavator supported overburden trenching and stripping to expose and wash the rock, carry out detailed geological mapping, establish the mineralogy, and evaluate whether the property can support economic quantities of critical minerals; up in Alaska, we've picked up a number of properties tied to critical minerals, aimed at antimony, and they sit on nonfederal lands. Alaska, and the Fairbanks area in particular, served as the main antimony source for the Allied Nations through the first world war. Then came World War II, with Japanese forces advancing and the elusive the folks that shipped the < >. We're now turning our attention back toward Alaska. The antimony deposits around Fairbanks were first found by the Plaza gold miners at about 1,900, who regarded the big boulders of antimony as a nuisance. After the Fort Knox gold deposit was discovered and developed in 1980s, the region experienced intensive exploration by the majors, among them Placer Dome and Inco, in pursuit of gold. Soil sampling surveys for indicator minerals, antimony included, formed part of those exploration programs. We've optioned a substantial number of claims on State of Alaska land from a family company that has held these claims across a couple of generations. There's no federal land involved, so no NEPA permitting is needed. The owners handed over the Placer Dome and Inco records to us, and Rod Blakestad, who serves as our Vice President of Mining Division, has pinpointed eight target areas where antimony values in the soils are anomalously high. Rod earned his degree from University of Alaska, Fairbanks and brings 19 years of field experience in the state. He'll head back to Alaska to lead an exploration program trenching the areas with antimony anomalies, and that will include mining any antimony as it gets uncovered. We have set up a lease for a 3.75 acre patented land parcel with a placer miner who is local, and our plan is to put a shop warehouse building there and use the location as our field headquarters. Once we've removed the overburden and exposed the bedrock, we expect to discover high grade antimony within that bedrock, and we would dig it all out and keep it stored on the patented land we are leasing. Our goal is to have enough ore stockpiled by August to start hauling it by truck to our facilities in Montana. At current prices, material with a grade of 50% antimony would be worth $25,000 per ton gross, and the distance by truck from the Fairbanks area to Philipsburg is roughly 2,435 miles, using a 20 ton truckload, with $500,000 at 50% antimony, the estimated cost would be $5,200 for each truckload, which works out to about $260 per ton, or roughly 1% of the value. Given this Alaska operation, there is genuine motivation to keep pushing ahead. Rod and everyone here at US Antimony is dedicated to getting this done; now I'll hand it back over to you, Gary.

Okay, thanks Joe. I truly hope everyone caught those final two sentences you just delivered, since it matters a great deal that our investors grasp this: right now, we purchase antimony from third parties. As Rick mentioned, three separate suppliers provide us with antimony, and every one of them operates internationally. At present, no antimony is being mined anywhere in the United States or Alaska. Once we can transport our own product out of Alaska in August down to our Montana facilities at the extremely low cost Joe just described, our margins are going to climb considerably. So I continue to hear figures regarding tonnage. I keep tucking that away in the back of my mind, but I would be pleased to begin with a couple of hundred tons per month. So we are readying ourselves to take in that material and eagerly anticipate it delivering a meaningful lift to our operating results during the second half of the year. Now I want to bring in Jonathan Miller. He is a brand new father who currently gets absolutely no sleep. So please show him a little love. He will share with you everything about our efforts on the marketing side in the capital markets, plus Investor Relations. Jonathan?

Thanks for that intro, Gary. When I came on board at US Antimony back in July of last year, one of the first big problems we faced was that we had essentially no footprint on Wall Street or in the wider capital markets. Before the management team changed, UAMY wasn't doing any marketing, had zero institutional recognition, and basically had no interaction with investors at all. It was obvious that we had to construct that base starting from nothing. During the back half of last year, our early plan was simple yet intentional: begin modestly, earn trust, and generate exposure. We put a lot of emphasis on showing up at over 20 investment conferences, both in-person and virtual, concentrating on small cap and micro cap gatherings where we could speak directly with retail and early institutional investors; thanks to these efforts, we were able to share the UAM story for the very first time with market participants who had never encountered us and had no knowledge of antimony and zeolite. At the same time, we set up accounts on major social media and brokerage channels, including LinkedIn, X, previously known as Twitter, StockTwits and WEIBO, which today together reach an audience of close to 65,000 retail investors who actively follow or monitor UAMY; these channels turned into essential ways to share company milestones, industry updates and build awareness of antimony's significance as a critical mineral. The numbers make the case on their own. By concentrating on this retail and micro cap institutional outreach, we managed to grow the company from a $20 million market cap to roughly $200 million, establishing UAMY solidly on Wall Street's radar and, for the first time, bringing our visibility in line with the rising national focus on critical minerals, particularly antimony. As that recognition increased, especially concerning antimony's strategic value in national defense and energy storage, our approach naturally shifted. The following stage, which we kicked off this January, involves going after bigger investors and funds, a lot of them international, that generate substantial long term capital appreciation. We've been lucky to collaborate closely with well-connected boutique firms such as Alliance Global Partners, Titan Partners and Jet Capital, each of which has not only invested time in thoroughly grasping our story but has also brought us straight to dozens of institutional investors via sponsored road shows. Our outreach has also involved meetings with analysts and bankers focused on mining from RBC Capital, Canaccord Genuity, National Bank Financial, Scotiabank, BMO, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Roth CALD & Co. 22.42 < >. Those discussions have been extremely valuable, not only for possible future capital sources but also for building relationships and gathering market intelligence as we establish UAMY's place in the wider critical mineral sector. Securing equity research coverage has been another key priority, something that didn't exist at all before our team arrived. Since then, two independent firms have begun research coverage on us, namely H.C. Wainwright and Alliance Global Partners, with the possibility of more expressing interest in publishing coverage after today's earnings report, a significant milestone that will keep growing our institutional audience. And lastly, we have broadened how far we can see into mainstream media as well as the industry press, sowing seeds within the wider narrative concerning critical minerals and the security of US supply chains. We obtained coverage—both televised and in written form—across more than 12 major outlets, among them Reuters, S&P Global, SaaS markets, New York Stock Exchange TV, Bloomberg, and Fox Business Mornings with Maria Bartiromo, each one amplifying the UAMY story to audiences worldwide. To wrap up, 2024 was the year for building foundations, lifting UAMY out of obscurity and into relevance. Come 2025, the focus will be on keeping those seeds in the ground, making institutional ties stronger, expanding research coverage, driving revenues higher, and establishing UAMY as a major participant in the national conversation on critical minerals—a space we are confident we truly belong in. Thank you.

I appreciate that, Jonathan. There's one more item I want to bring up regarding the capital markets: from some initial analysis a few companies have completed on our behalf, it looks like US Antimony will be joining the Russell 2000 Index during May. Obviously, that's going to boost recognition of us in the market even more and generate extra trading activity in our securities. There are a couple of subjects we haven't addressed on today's call — the DoD grant request and tariffs — so let me share a bit of information on those. All the necessary documentation for the federal grants has been filed with the US government, and at present we're still in what they call a quiet period. Without question, the shifts that have occurred lately, ever since President Trump became our new President of the United States, have caused delays. Even so, we're confident about our positioning, along with the narrative we've presented to the Department of Defense, and we continue to hold out hope for something — some relief somewhere down the line. Also, during the Q&A portion, please don't ask me anything about the DoD, since there's genuinely nothing beyond what I've just told you that I can share. As for tariffs, we're still worried, and we've talked over the matter with the governor, senators and house members in the states where we operate; this was done in a face-to-face meeting that I attended along with our Head of Government Relations, Melissa Pagen, and through written correspondence we've sent to each of those members. Every one of them gets it, and every one of them is cheering us on; so far our business hasn't been impacted, but we keep watching the situation carefully. Given that we clearly work in critical minerals, we think an exemption opportunity will emerge, much like what happened with the auto industry, where we also happen to sell antimony products. Before we take questions on the conference call, let me lay out seven key objectives for our company in fiscal 2025. Here they are: first, keep raising the intake volumes of antimony at the Thompson Falls and Madero smelters. Second, expand capacity at both smelters as our higher volumes require. This is mostly accomplished by installing additional furnaces. Third, if we succeed in getting government grant monies, we hope to speed up our expansion efforts even more, mainly in Montana. Fourth, grow our — keep growing our zeolite sales at a much better pace and also keep working to improve our net margins; we believe all the earlier issues are behind us and we're now at a point where meaningful progress on zeolite can be demonstrated. Fifth, begin our mining activities as Joe Bardswich described in Alaska and deliver high grade antimony ore to our facilities located in Montana this summer. Item seven: keep growing every division of the business while holding a spotless balance sheet, so we're recognized as a top-tier company. Number six: keep pushing our diversification into other critical minerals, whether that's in the US, Canada, or both. With that said, operator, let's have the audience ask us some questions. Alright. Our footprint is the issue at Thompson Falls. It's constrained. We sit in a valley flanked by a couple of mountain ranges, with US Forest Service land all around us; we're aware capacity there can be expanded; as a matter of fact, we just did so last week. We retrofitted and brought on an additional furnace. There are 4 more we could do this with, and we intend to as material keeps coming in greater amounts. Something I didn't bring up during our call: starting February 1st, antimony input from a Canadian source of ours rose 25% as part of a contractual commitment covering the coming year; and during February we received substantial shipments of new antimony from that main supplier. So at Thompson Falls we're able to raise volumes, though it's constrained, and we're evaluating other sites. Next question. Joe, go ahead and answer.

Our goal is to be capable, from a metallurgical standpoint, of processing the concentrate they've got, and their estimate puts it at a 60% grade, upgraded from a — the antimony reserves at the Idaho operations sit at 0.6%; so there's still a considerable distance ahead before they construct the mill and can install the processing setup needed to turn out antimony concentrates.

I'll pick up from where you left off, Joe. Our audience should really grasp something: we get approached by businesses worldwide that say they've got antimony, or that they're about to. My estimate is that in 90% of those cases, the company in question is still two, three, or four years out from genuinely having material on hand — which is why we don't bother investing effort there. Our response to them is: once you're inside a year, give us a call, we'll talk, and we'll be prepared. The thing is, we want to capitalize on antimony priced at $25 per pound right now — not two years out, not three years out, not four years out. That's the reason we're pushing so intensely on the Alaska operations: so we can genuinely become a fully integrated business with our own ore, our own flotation, our own smelting, and sell finished product, whether that's to the DoD or to our industrial customers. Plenty of companies claim to hold all sorts of antimony reserves, but you have to dig down deep and peel back those onion layers to figure out when — and whether — supply will actually materialize. Next question. I'm always on the lookout for that, and the answer is no; and I can say no with confidence, because we're in conversations with numerous construction companies — the very firms that would handle that kind of work for any other company — and not one of them has flagged anything new under construction or anything in the planning stages. So — and this isn't a simple process. What I mean is, it's something that takes three years, give or take, and permitting is an entirely separate matter. So the answer is: as of today, we genuinely are the only one in US, only one in Mexico, and I don't see any competition arriving in the near future. That could shift, but today we're it.

I'll handle that question, Gary. We see it this way: you won't find high grade cobalt by itself. And our goal is to determine how that high grade relates to the local geology. What makes a discovery at that site attractive is the nearby infrastructure — Vale, which used to be the Inco operations, runs a large mill 30 miles from there. Falconbridge's Strathcona mill is — Falconbridge is Xstrata now — they have the Strathcona mill, roughly 20 miles off. So should we find something, the lengthy lead time Gary mentioned for that Idaho company with antimony would be avoided, and we could mine and ship ore immediately; though we must locate the orebody first, and that's our initial job. Thank you.

Joe, how about you handle the opening portion, and I'll cover what comes after.

Alright, regarding Alaska properties — once we saw how hard it was for Perpetua to secure permits in Idaho, our focus shifted toward state land, and that approach has worked. Getting permits from the state usually takes somewhere between one and two months, and right now we're getting those applications ready. Essentially, our plan is to start digging in May. Over to you, Gary.

Regarding Madero, our inaugural antimony cargo from Australia arrived at the port earlier today. During the weekend and the initial portion of next week, it will undergo inspection and be transported by truck to Madero. There, we have added 15 new hires; throughout the last six weeks, we have renovated seven furnaces at a cost of slightly below $0.5 million, and we are ready to commence. Thus, I would estimate processing gets underway within seven to ten days — definitely by the close of March; in the meantime, our second and third shipments are at sea and will arrive sometime in April. Currently, we are in talks for a substantial extra acquisition that I would prefer not to get into at this point. Additionally, we've signed a contract for 50 more tons of material coming from Mexico — that's a supplier, and their estimate is that they can deliver about 100 tons each month. So right now, my main concern when it comes to Madero is that we've bought a substantial amount of inventory and whether we'll be able to keep up. As a matter of fact, before this call, I talked with the Vice President overseeing the Madero division about precisely this topic, and I laid out for him what I want to see going forward. The wonderful thing about Madero is that our footprint there is really substantial. Because of labor costs in Mexico, our operating costs are remarkably low. And whenever we decide it makes sense, we have the opportunity to grow that facility. My strong preference is to secure the inventory before putting any funds toward expansion. That said, from everything I currently understand, it's clearly approaching fast. Our general approach is to promise less and deliver more. Naturally, we now have a better sense of the timing, so whether it lands in June, July, or August honestly doesn't make much difference—though we're treating August as the target. It could turn out to be July, who can say; regardless, we've already put in a great deal of work. Additionally, we're working on acquiring more claims containing antimony. So we're simultaneously handling permitting, constructing camps, and purchasing extra leases — meaning there's a great deal happening all together. As I mentioned previously during this call regarding our personnel, we keep strengthening our team. My confidence remains that August — or July, August — is a solid timeframe to expect material arriving at Thompson Falls. Alright, I already addressed the inquiry about the Madero footprint. Indeed, we possess ample land; that's not a concern. Joe is able to speak about the trucking. Trucking's gotten a good chunk of our attention — actually, a route map is being handed to me as we speak. What we know for sure is that trucking gives us a serious advantage, because plenty of the rigs coming down out of Alaska are either headed for the United States or running deadhead, meaning they've got nothing loaded. For us, that could be a real benefit, and we're continuing to dig into all aspects of it. Joe, your turn.