China's Antimony Export Ban: What It Actually Means for Western Buyers, and Where Pakistan Fits

Antimony metal was trading around $12,000/t in early 2023. By September 2024, when Beijing announced the export licence regime on antimony, it was already north of $25,000. As of writing it sits near $39,000-$40,000/t on Rotterdam terms. That's not a market correction. That's a structural break.

And honestly, most Western buyers I speak to still haven't fully absorbed what happened.

What China actually did, and what it didn't

On 15 August 2024, China's Ministry of Commerce announced export controls on antimony, antimony ores, oxides, and certain smelting and separation technologies. Effective 15 September. Then on 3 December 2024, China went further — a full ban on antimony (and gallium and germanium) exports to the United States, citing dual-use concerns.

The language matters here. It's not a tariff. It's a licence regime plus a country-specific ban. Which means even if you're a European buyer with a long-standing Hunan supplier, you now need Beijing's export licence signed off shipment by shipment. Some licences are granted. Many sit in limbo. A trader friend in Antwerp told me his December 2024 shipment took 71 days to clear versus the usual 9.

China produces roughly 48% of global mined antimony. But that undersells it — because China also processes antimony from Russia, Tajikistan, Myanmar and Bolivia. On the refined metal and trioxide side, Chinese share of world output is closer to 80%. So when Beijing tightens the tap, everybody feels it. Not just the US.

Why antimony, why now

Antimony isn't glamorous. It's not lithium. It doesn't get profiled in the Financial Times every week. But look at what it actually does:

• Armour-piercing ammunition, night-vision goggles, tracer rounds, infrared missiles. The Pentagon can't build these without it.
• Solar panel glass — antimony trioxide is used as a clarifying agent in high-performance PV cover glass. First Solar and others need it.
• Flame retardants in cables, electronics, plastics — the largest volume application by tonnage.
• Lead-acid batteries (grid storage, backup, still a huge market).

The US Defense Logistics Agency has been quietly rebuilding its National Defense Stockpile. Perpetua Resources' Stibnite project in Idaho got a $59M DoD grant. But Stibnite won't produce meaningful metal before 2028 at the earliest. That's a four-year gap. Minimum.

Meanwhile solar manufacturers in Germany and defence primes in the US and UK are scrambling. I've had three separate enquiries in the past ninety days from buyers who a year ago wouldn't have returned my emails.

Where Gilgit-Baltistan sits in this

Antimony from Pakistan isn't a new story — the mineralisation has been known since the 1970s. What's new is that the price and geopolitics have finally made it worth developing seriously.

Our concessions in Gilgit-Baltistan sit along the same broad metallogenic belt that hosts the antimony occurrences documented by the Geological Survey of Pakistan in Chitral, Krinj, and the Ishkoman-Yasin corridor. Stibnite (Sb2S3) is the primary ore mineral, often associated with quartz veining and, in several of our targets, with gold. That gold credit matters for project economics — it can carry a lot of the mining cost.

Grades in the region vary widely. Historical GSP work reported stibnite-rich zones ranging from 4% to 28% Sb in vein material, with disseminated halos in the 0.8-2% range. I want to be careful here — those are historical numbers, not JORC or NI 43-101 resource statements. We're doing the drilling now to produce compliant numbers, and I'd rather underpromise than send a serious buyer a spreadsheet I can't defend.

The honest picture: Pakistan won't replace China. Nobody will. But Pakistan can be a meaningful non-Chinese supply node — the kind of tonnage that lets a German float-glass line or a US defence prime tell their board they've diversified. A few thousand tonnes a year of concentrate or metal, out of the KKH and through Karachi, is realistic on a 24-36 month development horizon for the more advanced concessions.

What Western buyers should actually be doing

Here's the thing — most buyers I speak to are still hoping the China situation resolves. It won't. Or rather, it might, but you can't build a supply chain on that hope.

Look, I got this wrong at first too. When the August 2024 controls hit, I assumed Beijing would ease them within six months once the price signal did its work. Instead they hardened the position in December. The pattern with rare earths in 2010 tells you the same story — controls tend to stay, not leave.

Practical steps for a serious buyer looking at antimony from Pakistan or any non-Chinese source:

1. Start with a small qualification tonnage. 50-200 tonnes of concentrate. Run it through your smelter or toll-refiner. Confirm the impurity profile works for your downstream.
2. Structure a pre-payment or off-take with milestones tied to compliant resource declaration. This is how juniors like us fund development without giving away the concession.
3. Understand the logistics before you sign. Karakoram Highway to Karachi is roughly 1,750 km. It works, but winter closures on the Khunjerab side and the Babusar section need planning around. Concentrate in sealed bags, not bulk.
4. Do the site visit. Islamabad to Skardu is a one-hour flight when the weather cooperates, six days by road when it doesn't. Buyers who've come up have generally left with a very different view than they arrived with.

The antimony supply alternative conversation isn't theoretical anymore. It's being negotiated, shipment by shipment, in offices in Rotterdam, Yokohama and Pittsburgh right now. Whether Pakistan captures a share of that redirected demand depends on how quickly operators here can move from historical showings to bankable production — and how quickly buyers can get comfortable with a jurisdiction they've mostly ignored.

If you're on the buying side and you've been told by your procurement team that antimony is "handled," I'd ask them one question: handled through whom, and with whose export licence?