Australia should narrow its critical-minerals focus – starting with antimony

Australia needs to talk less about critical-mineral supply chains and more about specific minerals.

Generic discussions about supply-chain resilience have become a substitute for strategic thinking. They encourage governments to speak in broad concepts while avoiding harder questions about where vulnerabilities actually sit. Supply chains don’t fail in theory but rather in specific minerals, facilities, ports and processing plants. Antimony demonstrates why that distinction matters.

Many Australians have never heard of antimony. Defence planners, however, understand its importance. Antimony supports ammunition production, strengthens lead alloys, contributes to flame retardants and plays a role in a range of industrial and defence applications. A disruption to antimony supply would not trigger an oil shock. However, it would still have consequences across defence and industry.

The global antimony market is small, concentrated and increasingly geopolitical. According to the US Geological Survey, global mine production reached about 110,000 tonnes in 2025. China produced around 40,000 tonnes, while Tajikistan, Russia, Bolivia, Myanmar and a handful of other countries accounted for the remainder. Australia produced about 1,300 tonnes. Those numbers tell only part of the story because mine production is no longer the most important source of leverage.

China’s influence increasingly stems from its ability to control access rather than from its production dominance. Beijing imposed export controls on antimony-related products and technologies in September 2024 and later restricted exports to the United States. Although China subsequently suspended some US-specific restrictions, the broader licensing regime remains intact. Exporters still require Chinese approval, and military end-use restrictions still apply. Beijing has demonstrated that it can influence supply, pricing and market confidence without producing the most antimony.

That reality exposes a broader flaw in Australia’s approach to critical minerals. Canberra still tends to treat critical minerals primarily as a mining opportunity. China treats them as instruments of state power. One approach focuses on extracting resources. The other focuses on controlling outcomes.

The difference becomes obvious when applying what might be called the Critical Minerals Sovereignty Test. Every critical mineral should be assessed through five questions: who mines it, who processes it, who buys it, who stockpiles it and who can deny it. Policy discussions often stop after the first question. Strategic competition begins with the remaining four.

Australia has an opportunity to apply that test to antimony. Larvotto Resources’ Hillgrove antimony-gold project in New South Wales is positioned to become Australia’s largest antimony producer. The company plans to commence production in 2026 and has stated that Hillgrove could eventually supply around 7 percent of global antimony demand. Existing infrastructure, an operating history and established processing facilities give the project advantages that many critical-minerals developments lack.

The real question is not whether Hillgrove will become a mine. Available evidence suggests it will almost certainly. The more important question is whether Hillgrove will become another successful Australian operation exporting concentrate or the nucleus of an allied antimony ecosystem encompassing mining, processing, stockpiling and defence-industrial demand.

That distinction sits at the heart of Australia’s critical minerals challenge. Ore exports create revenue. Industrial ecosystems create strategic advantage. Australia has spent decades proving it can extract minerals. It has yet to demonstrate that it can consistently convert mineral wealth into sovereign capability.

Antimony illustrates the problem. A mine alone does not secure supply. Refineries, processing technology, long-term offtake agreements, strategic reserves and Defence procurement decisions all matter. A country that exports concentrate while importing vulnerability has not solved its resilience problem. It has merely changed its location.

Australia should therefore focus less on celebrating discoveries and more on building industrial architecture. The government should work with allies to map the full antimony value chain from mine to military end-user. Canberra should support long-term processing partnerships with trusted partners in the US, Japan, South Korea and Europe. Defence planners should identify antimony-dependent systems and connect procurement decisions with industrial policy. Policymakers should also examine whether strategic reserves could provide additional decision time during disruptions.

The highest-return intervention may not be another mining subsidy. It may support non-Chinese processing, refining, strategic purchasing arrangements and allied stockpiling. Such measures would strengthen resilience far more than another announcement about resources in the ground.

Much of Australia’s critical-minerals debate remains trapped at the level of geology. Strategic competition operates at the level of industrial systems. Antimony demonstrates the difference. The most important question is not whether Australia can find critical minerals. The country has already answered that.

The more important question is whether Australia can build the processing, stockpiling, industrial coordination and allied partnerships required to ensure those minerals contribute to national power. Hillgrove provides an opportunity to answer that question. Australia should use it to demonstrate that critical minerals policy is about more than digging holes. It is about building the sovereign and allied capabilities that determine who can endure, who can mobilise and who can prevail when supply chains come under pressure.