United States Antimony Corp Aktie

Greetings. Welcome to the United States Antimony Corporation First Quarter 2026 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference and webcast is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to your host, Gary C. Evans, Chairman and CEO. You may begin.

Thank you, Paul, and welcome to our listeners. The news release on our earnings should be out any moment now. It was taking a little bit longer to get out, but as -- it should be out within a minute or 2. First, I'd like to start by introducing other members of the company's management team who has joined me today on this call. We have 7 speakers from management who'll be talking about their respective divisions because we have a lot to say, quite frankly. So those parties are as follows: Rick Isaak, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Shawn Winkler, our Interim Chief Financial Officer; Joe Bardswich, our Director and Executive Vice President; and our Chief Mining Engineer; Melissa Pagen, President and Chief Operating Officer of our Bear River Zeolite division; Jeff Fink, Vice President of our Antimony division up in Thompson Falls; Aaron Tenesch, who's Vice President of our Antimony Division, predominantly involved in procurements as well as Radersburg; and then Jonathan Miller, who's Vice President of our Investor Relations.

So before I turn over the conference call today to Rick and Shawn to discuss our financial report, I first want to say that I have never been more excited about where this company is going. If you are as an investor, knew only half as much as I do today, you'd also feel the excitement. This is no longer just an antimony company. Read the heading of our press release today. It says antimony, cobalt, gold, tungsten, and zeolite. We're making significant progress on all of these mineral developments, as you will hear today from our seasoned management team as they go over what all we're up to. Rick, you're up and let us hear about the first quarter earnings.

Thanks, Gary. As announced in a prior press release, I took a leave of absence a couple of weeks ago to take care of some personal matters. It was fortunate that we have been working with a very talented financial person, Shawn Winkler, who could step in as interim CFO. Shawn's experience over the prior 20-plus years includes corporate finance, capital markets, and executive leadership. He recently served as CFO of a full-service engineering, procurement, and construction firm in the energy industry and was an investment banker for over 15 years. Shawn has been working on financial projects for the company since late last year and knows the management and finance teams well. So this was an easy transition.

Okay. Next, I'll provide some comments on our consolidated results. Sales for the first quarter of 2026 was $6.8 million, nearly comparable to last year's sales of $7 million. Antimony segment sales were down 2% and Zeolite segment sales were down 7%. Gross profit for the first quarter of 2026 decreased $1.3 million compared to last year's first quarter. The majority of this decrease was due to higher labor, factory, and import, and freight costs. These cost increases were needed kind of like Gary was saying, to get the talent, factory, and inventory we need for the expected ramp-up in production for the remainder of this year. We expect these costs to improve with economies of scale as sales increase.

Net loss for the first quarter of 2026 was $11.3 million, which was primarily due to noncash stock compensation expense of $4.8 million and an unrealized loss on our investment in our Larvotto equity securities of $4.1 million, along with the higher cost of goods sold I mentioned just earlier. Working capital and other balance sheet metrics remain strong. Our cash position, including our U.S. treasury securities and equity securities totaled $60.2 million at the end of the first quarter of 2026. In addition, subsequent to March 31, 2026, we received $12.8 million of cash from our expansion grant from the U.S. government and $48.6 million of gross proceeds from the sale of our stock. Also, inventory increased by $9.5 million to $22 million at the end of the first quarter of 2026 compared to $12.5 million at the end of 2025. In addition, we continue to maintain a very low amount of debt on our books, $162,000 at the end of the first quarter.

On the operations side, we continue our strategy to, as Gary was mentioning, quickly develop our antimony supply infrastructure where little existed before. And this includes both internal and external infrastructure. First, on the internal infrastructure side, plans are in place to mine antimony in the U.S. in 2026. We mined antimony in 2025 and our expectations are much higher in 2026 for both Montana and Alaska. Second, on the external infrastructure side, contracts have been signed for monthly deliveries of antimony to our smelters in both Montana and Mexico, and our factories, our facilities are ready for this increased internal and external supply. Also, we continue to explore our mining sites in U.S. and Canada in 2026 for other critical minerals needed for the U.S. government and an industry, similar to what Gary again was mentioning at the beginning here.

In addition, we saw an increase in zeolite sales of about 60% in March of 2026 compared to March of 2025 from our efforts to increase zeolite sales in the animal feed industry, predominantly cattle. This antimony and zeolite mining and processing infrastructure is being built quickly to support our growth plans, and we expect to see the results of our initiatives in the back half of this year. The U.S. government recognizes the significance of our initiatives and granted us $27 million to assist with these initiatives. As I previously mentioned, in April of 2026, we received $12.8 million of this $27 million grant.

Overall, we aggressively continue to implement our strategy of growth, diversification and sustainability in 2026 for our company, our investors, and our country. I'll pass it back over to you, Gary.

Okay. Thanks, Rick. Shawn, do you want to introduce everybody to -- about yourself and your involvement with the company?

Yes. Excited to be here. Thanks, Gary. Rick kind of went through my background, recently joined -- a CFO of a 500-person engineering EPC company based out of Houston. Previous to that, I spent about 15 years as an investment banker advising companies, [ Glenn and Gary ], and previous iterations on M&A and capital raising, anything from secured debt to public equity. Really excited to join this team at this critical stage with the global intersection, yes, of critical mineral demand and supply chain security needs and accelerating global dynamics with China restricting exports. I think this is an awesome time to be joining a really emerging company with a lot of growth potential. So excited to be here, Gary.

Well, thank you. We're glad to have you on board, Shawn, and you've already done a lot just in a short period of time you've been here. So super. We'd like to now turn the call over to Joe Bardswich. If you would please update everyone on all our critical mineral field activities, Joe?

Thank you, Gary. I'll start with Stibnite Hill in Montana, source of the antimony that we mined last October, November. An early spring enabled our crews to access the mountain. However, the Montana DEQ requested leach test of the stibnite ore to determine the potential leaching of antimony into the environment from the bedrock. U.S. Antimony has submitted a proposal to contain possible leaching utilizing a local available clay as an impermeable cover. Permission to proceed with our mining plans of the stibnite and hauling it to the Radersburg Mill is expected within the next 2 weeks. 800 tons of stibnite grading 10% antimony was hauled to the mill in only 4 weeks during late October, early November. We expect that once we get going, we'll have steady production until winter shut us down.

Switching to tungsten is the Fostung deposit, Ontario, Canada. Record snowfall this past winter, combined with a warm spring snow melt resulted in regional flooding causing sporadic closing of both the TransCanada highway and the access roads at Fostung. The roads are now open and our crew has resumed work, including the collection of a bulk sample of typical mineralized material for additional metallurgical test work at the Lakefield Research Labs in Ontario. Discussions with operating flotation mills in the region are continuing regarding the processing of a large bulk sample in the area of 20,000 to 50,000 tons.

This will be the first tungsten mined in North America in decades. The company has filed a technical report authored by SRK Consulting Canada, Inc., an independent mineral consulting firm, that was filed with the SEC. The report calculated an inferred resource of 14.62 million metric tons, grading 0.17% WO3, that's tungsten trioxide, containing 53.595 million pounds of WO3.

Switching to Alaska and antimony. We worked at Ester Dome last year. That work will resume before month's end with the investigation of antimony soil anomalies by both trenching the bedrock and the drilling of percussion holes through the overburden with the collection of rock cuttings for examination and assay analysis. The objective being to identify stibnite deposits that can be sent to Montana for bulk testing at the company's Radersburg mill. Also in Alaska, the Maclaren River K-M copper project. An Alaskan state geological survey in the area a year ago has reported collection of samples from our K-M claim. The assay results indicated very high-grade copper values with minor gold and silver. We have scheduled a drill program for late summer to test continuity of the vein-to-depth. This would be USAC's first copper project.

Also in Alaska, the Nolan Creek antimony-gold deposit. This property was acquired through a trustee sale by public auction earlier this year. Our rating of the exploration potential of the property is very high and an extensive exploration program will be conducted this summer. The previously developed underground workings in one area give access to 3 parallel veins of antimony and gold. A technical report by qualified person, [indiscernible] here , available to the public, has reported a resource of 42,412 tons, grading 28% stibnite -- excuse me, 28% antimony and 0.408 ounces of gold per ton. That worked out to a gross value in excess of $460 million at today's prices. The company intends to upgrade the underground access ramp to meet MSHA regulations and commence mining of this high-grade ore. The ore would be trucked to our Radersburg gravity and flotation milling facility. Back to you, Gary.

Joe, before I let you go, regarding our Fostung tungsten mine up in Canada, which I know the market just has not yet figured out how valuable we believe that is. If we were to apply today's tungsten price to what this third-party report, this resource report that we got earlier this year that we filed with the SEC, which states our potential reserves, what would that value be, again, based on today's tungsten price?

The last price I have for tungsten would be $3,300 per metric ton unit. Using that price, the gross value before mining, processing, et cetera, the gross value would be $9.3 billion.

$9.3 billion. And again, Fostung tungsten is an open pit. You're moving -- you've already moved material now to be -- to go to the lab. And we hope to be doing much more active operations there later this year. As you said, weather has hurt us a bit on the roads. Is that right?

That's correct. And the local First Nations, the Whitefish River First Nations have agreed to perform a blessing ceremony to start us off, and we're looking forward to getting that started and bringing some of the benefits of that deposit to the benefit of the First Nations people.

And I don't think any tungsten has been mined in either the United States or Canada. And I know at least 10 years, maybe 20 years. So this would be the first active tungsten mine, which we're showing just under $10 billion of future value mined in the U.S. And so we have -- so that everybody knows, we've made formal applications with the federal government for grant money associated with this tungsten discovery. Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it.

And we'll now jump the call over to Melissa Pagen. Melissa is President and Chief Operating Officer of our BRZ division, which is our zeolite subsidiary. And she's made me promise not to steal her thunder, which I won't, even though I want to. But -- so I will let Melissa take over the call.

Okay. Thank you, Gary. In the first quarter, our focus has been to execute on the priorities we outlined in the beginning of the year, specifically strengthening the operational capabilities required to support strategic growth in our target markets, especially cattle nutrition. You may recall, our cattle nutrition business segment launched in February. This business segment required several front-loaded costs to establish the operational capabilities needed to support it and to create a foundation for scaling it. These costs were intentional.

During the quarter, we expanded logistics capabilities. We increased inventory to support bulk delivery, and we added staffing ahead of full utilization as we prepare for multi-shift operations. In parallel, we've continued to develop key infrastructure and automation initiatives to support higher throughput expectations and improve long-term efficiency. These initiatives are still in process and will continue into the second quarter and have continued in the second quarter. But we expect those to materially increase throughput capacity, improve cost efficiency, and enable more consistent, scalable operations over time. We've also been operating in a higher cost freight environment, particularly with the cost of diesel, as we scale delivery to meet demand.

Freight is a -- freight in its current form for us is a whole new factor now that we're offering delivered pricing for the first time in company's history in order to serve and compete in the cattle nutrition space. And again, to operate in this space, that level of service and supporting infrastructure are not optional. They are required. And as mentioned at the beginning of the year, we've also begun actively participating in cattle industry conferences, where we've made strong progress getting our name and products in front of key decision-makers. And I'm happy to report we continue to make very -- be very well received, and that increased visibility is continuing to translate into new customer engagement. To add an exclamation point here, as recent as the past 2 weeks, we've brought on 2 new cattle nutrition customers and are in discussions with others, none of which were even on our radar during our last update call.

So -- and here's my favorite part that Gary was talking about. In March, we achieved a record number of tons of zeolite shipped, exceeding our monthly target by approximately 42% and that momentum continued into April, where shipments increased further to roughly 66% above target. I hope I'm okay to talk about April. Again, both March and April broke all-time records for tons -- total tons of zeolite shipped. And what's key in all of this is that demand is now outpacing our existing infrastructure and the phased upgrades underway are essential to keep up with volumes that are consistently increasing.

So while the first quarter results begin to reflect our upfront investment required to build our overall capacity, the trajectory exiting the quarter is one of accelerating demand, increasing utilization, and a clear path toward improved operating performance. And real quick, Gary, I had some feedback last time that I went a little too into the weeds of cattle lingo. So hopefully, I kept that reeled in this time. And that's all I got. Thank you.

So just to kind of refresh everybody about the BRZ Zeolite subsidiary. When I first came on board 3 years ago, one of the first things I attacked was getting this facility up and running, and that was the result of Jeff Fink being hired, who -- he's going to talk here in a second. He was the mechanical engineer that really did the hard work there in the field. So we are extremely excited after Joe Bardswich made the decision that, "Hey, we need to do a resource report on this property," which we did. And that report showed over a 400-year supply of zeolite. Now obviously, a 400-year supply doesn't do any of us any good. So we want to get that down to less than 100 years or less than 50 years because none of us are going to be around 400 years from now.

So that's what Melissa and her team are doing. They're driving sales. This company never did any marketing in its 30-plus year history, never did any marketing of zeolite. And we now have salespeople that are highly qualified in the field that can talk the language to the cattleman. We're going to conferences, and we're seeing immediate results because we know we have the highest quality zeolite of any mine in the world, and now we have a huge supply. So we need to double, triple, quadruple sales, and that's what we're attempting to do.

And the results of Melissa's team and their hard work are showing now. You won't -- you didn't really see much of it in the first quarter. You'll see a lot of it in the second quarter. And now we've got to make some capital improvements. We've got to be able to meet the demand of these new customers. So that's a good problem to have, and it's not a large expenditure. There are automation things that we can do to be able to expedite moving this material. So very excited of where BRZ is going.

And I'm going to now turn the call over to Jeff Fink. I know all of you want to hear what is the status of your expansion in Thompson Falls, and Jeff is going to give us a great update. Jeff?

All right. Thank you, Gary. The Thompson Falls expansion is getting very close to becoming operational, which will be done in stages. We now have all the heat exchanger bodies on site and in place, but we still need one set of parts to make them functional. We did fabricate our own for 3 of them, which should allow us to run those 3 at 50% of capacity. The OEM parts should start arriving in the last week of May was enough to get 1 to 2 additional furnaces running per week, and we should have all these parts and they'll run all 9 furnaces near mid-July. We started commissioning activities in Thompson Falls at the beginning of May. This time, we have enough systems running for 3 functional furnace lines that can run manually. Controls and ways to load the furnaces are still pending, should be resolved in the next week or 2.

As with any commissioning activities, unexpected problems are expected and we'll solve them as they come about. Even though the new plant equipment is ready to run at full capacity, the material handling and operating the plant will be a learning curve for the employees and a ramp-up will commence. I'd not expect full nameplate capacity for the plant right at the end of July, but I hope to be near 80%. Once we're in a stable operation with the new plant, which has a capacity of about 230 tons a month, with all 9 furnaces running, we'll then shut down the old plant, with about a 75 ton per month capacity, to replace the dust collectors in the electrical systems to meet our new emission standards that we need to hit under the increased production levels of our current permit emission limits. This shutdown should take 4 to 8 weeks.

While this is a longer schedule than originally projected when we were starting the engineering, keep in mind that we're still only 1 year and 1 week after starting engineering for this project. When we started this endeavor, while we were rather sure of the amount of government funding we're going to obtain, we were much less sure of the exact scope only for engineering, which continued well into construction because we know the full scope of the project to hit our production goals. On top of this and the large delays from the heat exchanger deliveries from the third-party results in this schedule, which is still a great achievement for what would likely take a typical company 3 or more years to complete. Thank you. Back to Gary.

Thank you, Jeff, and we're all very excited to get these new furnaces fired up because we continue to build our inventory, which Aaron is going to talk about here next. 2025 was a period where we were buying from foreign sources from 5 to 6 different countries. Through that effort, we learned where the best antimony was with respect to availability, and we focused on that. And Aaron is going to talk about how we're continuing to increase our throughput of purchase of raw ore, which now will be able to be processed in the expanded Thompson Falls facility as well as down in Mexico. So Aaron?

Thank you, Gary. I would like to first provide an update on our Madero smelter followed by Thompson Falls, Montana Processing Center, and some hydromet updates, and then the critical mineral mill located at Radersburg, Montana acquired at the beginning of 2026. The first quarter of 2026 saw a consolidated -- consolidation and increased reliability in supply contracts, providing consistent feed for the Madero smelter in Mexico throughout 2026. These same contracts should continue to roll over and provide sufficient support to allow for consistent long-term production. An average of 225 tons of high-quality feedstock is being delivered every month now. This is reflected in our inventory numbers reported today, which are twice what they were last year. Through this reliability in material and supply, consistent operations have been realized, allowing constant production and product quality.

The strengthening of international relationships in these supply contracts may lead to other critical mineral sources that may provide future developments. Specialized methods to remove the typical contaminants of arsenic and iron have been developed at the Madero smelter, resulting in the production of very clean antimony ingots, meeting stringent specifications and satisfying preferred sales contracts.

The Thompson Falls processing center continues with consistent production while working with 2 new feed sources in preparation for the full commissioning of the expansion. New midstream feed sources continue to be developed. Despite delays in critical equipment delivery and typical start-up issues, our operating partner in Bolivia began producing metallic antimony flake in March and hosted a tour for U.S. antimony and our joint venture partner, Americas Gold and Silver senior management in early April. Initial shipments to Thompson Falls have commenced.

The hydromet system to be built in joint venture with Americas Gold and Silver will be more complex than the system we assisted in building in Bolivia but is a similar process. The product will also be a metallic antimony flake that will be delivered to Thompson Falls for final product conversion. A further update on Bolivia. We are happy to report that our operating partner there has commissioned their processing circuits fully and has prepared the first shipment. That shipment has undergone third-party sampling and sealing with shipping now fully booked from door-to-door. The United States Antimony critical mineral mill located in Radersburg, Montana was purchased in early January of this year. Very light development and system upgrade work has been completed and the standard crushing, grinding, gravity, and flotation systems are ready for operations. Further upgrades will add capacity, flexibility, and general capability in recovering various mineral products.

While the processing circuit required minimal upgrades, there was not a functional laboratory. A new building has been constructed and new laboratory equipment is currently being installed. The lab will have complete sample preparation, fire assay, wet chemistry, and XRF analysis areas. Sufficient bag houses and fume hoods have been delivered to support health and safety along with general cleanliness. A modern XRF system featuring a 3-kilowatt XRF is in the process of being installed. These diverse analytical capabilities will support the recovery of antimony and other critical minerals. Test work performed on the Stibnite Hill ore is nearly complete and features several different reagent combinations and extensive optimization work. Initial tests reported antimony grades in excess of 60% in flotation concentrates, and we hope more refined testing and plant production will support even higher grade concentrates.

We are excited about this next phase of USAC expansion and look forward to processing mined materials from Montana, Alaska, and potentially, other locations. Thank you. And back to you, Gary.

Before I let you go, Aaron, there's 2 things I'd like to elaborate on a little further for our listeners. The first is, why is it so important having our own laboratory up in Radersburg for our future operations? I don't think people understand how necessary that construction and completion is to our company. Number two, how can our hydromet processing technology assist in handling maybe other critical minerals outside of antimony? I know we talked about that when we were down in Bolivia, but how can that process really begin helping us as we start to possibly manage silver, or copper, or other critical minerals. Can you elaborate on those 2 questions?

I can. We'll start with the laboratory because that one is a little easier, maybe. Really, a flotation mill or any concentrating system like that is subject to the variability in the ore and in the feed. And it actually needs much quicker analysis and more available information than other types of systems. So therefore, you really want a laboratory to be available that produces results in less than 24 hours. So you have real-time results on what the system is doing at that moment.

There's a couple more reasons that we do need our own lab there. Really, to support other exploration and our really diverse mineral portfolio, we need quicker results for those efforts as well. Current lead times in most national labs are beyond a month and some are approaching 2 months to get results, and that just doesn't support a very good field program for exploration. So having our own ability to analyze many of these different elements will really help support those efforts. And beyond all of that, antimony is not a very commonly pursued mineral and so there really are no labs that specialize in the analysis of antimony and especially in the high-grade products that we will produce there with the flotation concentrate. So for those reasons, we really need our own lab that has these diverse capabilities.

Now on the hydromet front, there is some universal equipment there, maybe not quite as universal as flotation concepts in the mill, but a lot of these minerals pass through essentially the same equipment. The chemistry may be a little different, but the vehicles are very similar. So we will be able to adapt or expand upon our hydromet capabilities in sort of a building block manner with these technologies. The other reason we are moving at least part of our focus to these technologies is its flexibility and diversification with handling contaminants and neutralizing those in a little bit more direct way than some of the other traditional technologies.

Super. Thank you, Aaron, and it's exciting. I know you're, I think, having a grand opening of your Radersburg facility, what? In July. Is that correct, for the governor?

Yes. We will be there July 7, I believe, the governor, and I think maybe one of our senators.

Excellent. Okay. Let's now turn over the call to Jonathan Miller, who's going to update us on all the marketing activities that he and I have worked on since the beginning of the year. Jonathan?

Thank you, Gary, and good afternoon, everyone. Our first quarter was another bolt-on period for United States Antimony Corporation. It reflected the acceleration of our strategy, the expansion of our existing platform, and the growing recognition that antimony is no longer a niche industrial input. It is a strategic mineral tied directly to national defense, energy security, industrial resilience, and the reindustrialization of a critical supply chain in the United States. Over the past several months, the world has continued to wake up to what we have been building for the last several years. Antimony supply remains significantly constrained. Western processing capacity remains limited. China has become a net importer amid tightening raw material availability and processing disruptions.

Demand is increasingly tied to strategic applications where quality assurance, quality control, reliability, and traceability are essential and where this emerging antimony market is lacking. In that environment, United States antimony is positioned at the center of a critical domestic supply chain in North America that very few companies incredibly address. During the first quarter alone, Gary and I held more than 200 meetings and introductions with new funds, institutions, family offices, and strategic investors. We completed 6 non-deal roadshows across key financial centers, including Minneapolis, Chicago, Boston, and New York. We also participated in 5 investor conferences, both virtual and in person, reaching thousands of additional investors through meetings, streaming platforms, and social media distribution.

This level of engagement reflects a deliberate strategy to broaden our shareholder base, increasing institutional awareness, and educate the market on both United States Antimony and the broader critical mineral landscape. We are seeing that strategy translate into ownership. Public ownership data showed increasing participation from global index managers, small-cap growth funds, natural resource funds, infrastructure-oriented strategies, and global metals and mining funds. Several large funds initiated or increased positions during the quarter, reflecting what we believe is a continued transition from primarily retail awareness toward a deeper and more durable institutional following.

Our institutional ownership is now approaching 50%. At the same time, we continue to communicate consistently with shareholders through social media, press releases, television interviews, podcasts, and commercials covering company developments, the antimony market, and the broader critical minerals environment. Q1 also included several major corporate milestones. Today, we are excited to launch our new corporate website, which is now live and better reflects the company we are becoming: larger, more visible, more institutional and increasingly central to America's critical minerals future. So if you're experiencing difficulty accessing our website right now, please allow 48 hours for all the data to transfer servers.

Now before discussing the quarter's strategic milestones, I want to ground the story in a few hard fundamentals. UAMY began the year at $5.93 per share and ended Q1 at $8.30 per share, representing an increase of approximately 40% or 1.4x move during the quarter. We began the year with an approximate market cap of $830.4 million on January 2, 2026, and ended the quarter at approximately $1.19 billion. That represents approximately 43.4% market cap growth or 1.43x increase from the start of the year. We ended the quarter with approximately $118.9 million in cash, U.S. treasury securities and marketable equity securities, giving the company flexibility to fund growth initiatives. We also continue to trade with elevated liquidity with current data showing average daily volume in the roughly 12 million-plus share range with a number of days approaching 20 million shares in volume.

Now let's turn back to our milestones. First, we were awarded a $27 million government grant from the Department of War, a process that began in December 2024 and reflects the increasing strategic importance of domestic antimony production and processing capacity. This award represents more than capital. It represents validation. It reinforces our mission and the role United States Antimony can play in strengthening America's critical mineral independence. Second, we completed our uplisting from the NYSE American to the NYSE Classic Board. On March 11, 2026, our team had the honor of ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. That moment represented more than symbolism. It marked the next stage of our evolution, greater visibility, a broader institutional platform, and a stronger position in the public markets.

Third, we released our episodic company docu series across our website and social media channels. The goal was not only to tell our story, but to educate the public on why antimony matters, why domestic processing matters, and why critical mineral reindustrialization is essential to America's future. We also launched a national television commercial campaign across leading business, cable, and streaming platforms to bring the United States Antimony story beyond the investor community and into the broader public conversation.

Critical minerals are no longer just a market topic. They are a national topic, an industrial topic, and a defense topic, and we intend to help lead that conversation. Gary also remained a visible public voice for the company and the industry. During the quarter, he made 8 public appearances, including interviews on Fox Business, Bloomberg, and NYSE TV, along with several notable investor podcasts. These appearances help broaden awareness and reinforce the company's role in the domestic antimony supply chain.

Operationally and strategically, one of the most important developments of the quarter was the strengthening of our relationship with Americas Gold and Silver. Senior management, including the CEOs from both companies, traveled to Bolivia, where we met with our hydrometallurgical partner and toured the operation firsthand. After several days of technical discussions, site visits and collaboration among our chemists and engineers, we came away increasingly confident in the path ahead. Our yet-to-be-built 120,000 square foot hydromet facility in Idaho is designed to be state-of-the-art and the first of its kind for domestic antimony production with a target goal of 1,000 tons per month of 99.9% pure antimony, which is roughly half of the entire U.S. market.

When completed in 2028, hydromet processing could meaningfully expand the range of antimony-bearing material we are able to process, including the majority of material historically we've rejected because of low stibnite grade or high impurity levels. That matters because it changes the scale of the opportunity. We are not simply building capacity for today's feedstock. We are building a processing platform for the next generation of domestic and allied antimony supply. We believe this platform has the potential to position United States Antimony as the domestic hub for antimony processing in the United States with additional strategic relevance in Australia, where we also hold licensing rights.

And antimony is just Phase 1. Phases 2 and 3 include silver, copper, and gold. The bigger picture is this. Q1 was a quarter of acceleration. We expanded institutional engagement. We broadened public awareness. We strengthened strategic relationships. We advanced government-supported initiatives. We elevated our listing profile. We increased visibility across national media, and we continued building the foundation for a vertically integrated antimony platform at a time when the world urgently needs secure Western-aligned supply.

United States Antimony is no longer just telling the market what we intend to build. We are demonstrating it quarter-by-quarter, milestone by milestone, relationship by relationship. We believe the company has entered a new phase, one defined by scale, institutional recognition, strategic relevance, and most importantly, execution. There remains significant work ahead, but the trajectory is clear. The market is moving toward us. The policy environment is moving toward us. The strategic need is moving toward us, and United States Antimony is moving with urgency to meet that moment. In the near future, we are scheduled to participate in several key conferences and roadshows, including B. Riley at Marina del Rey at the end of this month, Lytham Partners Virtual Conference, William Blair's Growth Stock Conference in Chicago, StoneX's Natural Resource Summit in New York, the Beaver Creek Precious Metals Summit in Colorado and their Zurich Summit, and a Europe non-deal roadshow as well as additional events to be announced as international recognition continues to grow.

I would like to close by sharing our official company purpose statement, which is to become the premier supplier of critical minerals to the United States of America. Back to you, Gary.

Thank you, Jonathan. I didn't realize we were so busy. I guess I do. Let's -- before we turn over the call to the listeners, I would like to conclude with an ending statement. Between our Thompson Falls expansion coming online in stages over the next few weeks, as Jeff has indicated, -- our successful acquisition of Radersburg flotation mill, and by the way, I had been negotiating that acquisition for well over 1 year when the original owners wanted close to $10 million, and we bought it for $4.3 million. So very happy that we got something that fit us at a good time.

Our new hydromet joint venture with Americas Gold and Silver that we announced a few months ago that's going to be constructed in Idaho. We received now $12 million in sales orders under our DLA contract for antimony ingots with 2 initial orders noticed to the federal government. So we are making significant progress there. Our Fostung mining operations up in Canada with substantial new resource report that Joe described, which is filed with the SEC showing -- with the SEC showing now close to $9 billion of value. We've raised $48.6 million of new equity at an average cost of $11.57 per share. And finally, federal grant applications of new funds totaling $274 million for our various projects, and I'll describe what those applications are.

Department of Energy for hydromet is $44 million. That was filed in January. We should have an answer in the next 45 to 60 days. The DIBC, which is the Department of War, a tungsten exploration grant for $5 million, another tungsten utilizing hydromet, reestablishing a domestic supply for $105 million, and a hydromet concentrator for critical minerals of $119 million. There are additional applications that come up every week. We review them, and I can promise you, we'll be making additional applications for federal grant money. We are a unique company in that we are providing exactly what the government is asking for. They want more antimony, they want more tungsten, and we're working on cobalt feverishly. So those are 3 critical minerals that are the number -- top number critical minerals on the federal government list, and we're trying our best to make that happen.

Nobody, as I said earlier, has been able to mine tungsten in close to 20 years in North America. We're doing it right now. We've already moved bulk samples and getting them assayed, and we're highly encouraged about what we see. So this is not only an antimony company, as I first stated during the call, we are involved in cobalt, gold, tungsten, and zeolite, not antimony only. And so as we continue to make the investments and progress in these various other critical minerals and with our zeolite sales growing, we hope to have some wonderful results. I've looked very hard at our $125 million revenue guidance for this year. I'm convinced we can do it.

And you're seeing that occurring now with deliveries to the federal government. I would say $75 million to $95 million of the $125 million will be federal government shipments of antimony ingots by the end of the year. And with the ramp-up that's occurring now, with the additional inventory we built with additional antimony supplies coming in, I'm highly confident that we can make those numbers. So we're all working hard to help you see the results of our efforts. So with that, operator, let's turn it over to our listeners for any questions they may have.

[Operator Instructions]

All right, Gary, the first question is, the company has a substantial investment in Larvotto Resources in Australia. What is the status? Also, Larvotto closed at AUD 1.58, U.S. equivalent of $1.14. What is current value versus what we paid?

Okay. Good question. You saw in the first quarter, we had a noncash mark-to-market loss of $4.1 million, which related to the value of Larvotto stock at the end of the quarter. If you were to do that same calculation today, based on where Larvotto just last closed, that increase would be $10.1 million. So a big swing there of $14 million. So I wish I could logically answer the question about what is going on with Larvotto. We have gotten absolutely nowhere with the management team, which seems in our minds to be entrenched. All of us have one simple objective, both their management as well as U.S. Antimony's management, and that is to maximize the return to our shareholders. That's our job. That's what we get paid to do.

At this point, with no credible dialogue with management at Larvotto or even their advisers, we may simply just sell our ownership position and, hopefully, make some money on it. I just don't know. It's sad because we have a game plan for Larvotto. We wanted to put a hydromet facility there. We wanted to help out the country. It's unfortunate that 10% of that company is owned by the Chinese. It's unfortunate they have signed a marketing agreement with the Chinese. I can't believe Australia is going to allow this to happen. But at this point, we're pretty disgusted with how things have gone with Larvotto. I can't answer the question of where we'll be, but we are actively looking at the possible sale of our shares in the open market or to a buyer. Next question.

Next question. You had a mutually beneficial deal with Americas Gold and Silver. I wanted to see if there's other potential agreements like that with other firms in the pipeline? And if so, can you maybe give a bit of a vision of your new view related to partnering up, especially given the vast reach that you now have when it comes to various elements that may be more attractive than it was in the past, no?

Yes. I would say that most upstream miners really don't have a desire to be a refiner. And that was the same way in the oil and gas business that I worked in for 38 years. Either we're an oil and gas driller, you might have midstream, which is processing or pipelines, but I don't know of any oil and gas company that was a refiner. Well, here, we're a refiner going upstream. And so we know the refining business very well. We've proven that. We're the sole source supplier of antimony to the U.S. government. And we have now taken the risk of developing a hydromet facility in Bolivia that we're going to duplicate in Idaho with Americas Gold and Silver.

The opportunity to take that technology and move it into other critical minerals definitely exists. It's not exactly duplicative. Things have to be changed from a mechanical and technology standpoint, but we think we have the people and the know-how to do that. So no question that us getting into hydromet process. And I don't want people to think that we've invented this. Hydromet has been around for 40 years. It's been used. And so what we've done, though, with our partners, have developed it and fine-tuned it to really handle antimony in a way that's never been done before.

As I think Aaron stated in his commentary, we can now take, once the hydromet facility is up and running, all kinds of grades of antimony, which we cannot take today in our gas-fired furnaces. We can take impurities that today we cannot take in our gas-fired furnaces. So what it does is it opens up the door for lots of other antimony supply that sits around the world that we have seen and tried to process and could not. That was what we did in 2025. We now have homed in on the highest quality antimony around, and that's what we're processing.

So no question, once we announced the Americas Gold and Silver opportunity, we got called from a number of companies that, "Hey, we don't want to do what you do. Can we bring our antimony to you?" So we are focused on this facility, not just handling Americas Gold and Silver, but other third-party suppliers of antimony, some in the general area of where we'll be building this plant in Idaho. Next question?

Does the company expect to mine or sell any tungsten in calendar year 2026? And if so, what's the target month for first revenue?

That's a really good question that I would have to defer to Joe with. I think the chances of us selling any magnitude of tungsten are small. I think the chances of us determining what we have as commercially operational are very good. Joe, would you -- how would you respond to that?

I think that's correct. I'd like to see us put out 20,000 to 50,000 ton bulk sample, put that through one of the local mills in the Sudbury area and truck that concentrate down to Pennsylvania or some other processor to make that into ammonium paratungstate. Full production, no, there'd be quite a bit of permitting to get to that full production level. As it is in Ontario, the potential for producing a bulk sample up to 50,000 tons is covered at this stage we are in the permitting. Back to you, Gary.

Yes, thank you. Next question, Jonathan?

How is UAMY positioning itself as a strategic player to decouple our national reliance on Chinese supply lines?

Well, I think everything we're doing is answers that question. I mean, the fact that the government has given us money to expand our facility in Thompson Falls, which is what Jeff has been working on for a year. The fact that we have a significant government contract that, I can promise you, they want filled faster than we are capable right now, but we're getting there very quickly. Our first 2 orders have been notified to the government. They're inspecting them now. And we're getting into the mode of having this consistently done every month. We've got a great supply. We've got our systems running right. Our new smelter will be running. So those volumes will go up incrementally over each month.

So I think the fact that we have won these awards, we have the new awards we're seeking, that we have a great dialogue with the government. General Keane has been extremely helpful on our Board in helping us navigate the bureaucracy that our government has. And I think that we're perfectly positioned. We got involved with tungsten at the government's request. This wasn't something that we just decided to do. We got involved in cobalt at the government's request. We need cobalt, we need tungsten, we'll fund you. That's why we're doing what we're doing. So I think the fact that we are performing, we're delivering, we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, and we're doing it correctly, gives us tremendous credibility with the federal government.

Next question. Given the $27 million in DoD grants, how much of that capital is already deployed? And what is the specific time line for the next tranche of funding based on your milestones?

Well, we've received payment of $12 million of the $27 million. The -- remember that $27 million is broken up $20 million for Thompson Falls, $7 million for Alaska. I believe the remaining $20 million, which is, what? $8 million, will get paid this year as Jeff is able to get the furnaces and all commissioned and running. There are certain specific milestones of release of that remaining $8 million.

The $7 million for Alaska, I don't believe we'll see any this year. I believe we'll see most of that in 2027. The reason for that is that certain things the government has required for that $7 million would impede our speed that we're moving at in Alaska to do certain things. And so a lot of it has to do with some environmental red tape, and we prefer to wait to get that $7 million until we're done with the entire summer period of Alaska. The biggest negative for Alaska is the working period. We're not really starting until now, here in May, and we run until maybe September, October, and then that's done. So during that winter time period, we'll be doing the work necessary for the remaining $7 million grant.

And I think we might have already addressed this question when Jeff was speaking, but when will the expansion of the smelter be completed?

Well, it's going in phases. As Jeff mentioned, he's going to be firing up furnaces here over the next 10 days to 2 weeks. It will be done. 80%, he stated will be running by hopefully mid-July, end of July with the remaining 100% coming on as the months go. So that will -- that's a big increase of where we are today. We're going to delay shutting down the first group of furnaces, the old facility, as long as possible to be sure all the kinks are out and they were not missing anything.

Obviously, there's an employee count involved as well. You may have remember, we bought a housing development in Thompson Falls late last year to house people that couldn't have -- couldn't find a place to live. So we're doing it in a very controlled manner that makes sure that we don't lose production. We want to increase production and delay any other things as long as possible so that we can meet our target of $125 million.

Next question. You were very confident in moving your 2026 revenue expectations up from $100 million to $125 million. Are you still confident with that number for the year?

I'm still confident that we can deliver, as I said earlier, $75 million to $95 million of antimony ingots to the federal government. Demand is not the problem. It's just making sure we can process it and deliver it at the speed that the government wants. And so getting Mexico's kinks out, which we've done, getting the new smelter operational, which we'll be doing in the next couple of weeks and having the consistent high-quality supply of material coming along with the Bolivian antimony flake allows us to feel comfortable keeping that $125 million number.

Next question. Any new cobalt prospects?

We do have some negotiations going on with Cobalt. I can't really go into detail with that. I know Joe is also doing some additional work around our cobalt property up in Canada. I don't really want to comment on that yet either for competitive reasons. So we are still focused on cobalt, and we've learned a lot regarding the property we currently own and where we want to be and what we need. And so there has been one party I've been talking to for almost a year on another cobalt refining process, and we're making progress.

Next question looks like it might be for Amanda. Is BRZ -- or Melissa, excuse me, is BRZ pursuing soil amendment and filtration markets?

Thanks, Jonathan. Yes, [ Kevin ], thank you for that question. We are -- we will pursue every market possible that comes to us. But as you know, BRZ is a pretty small team and a small company. So as we started off the year, we recognized the need to focus on a couple of markets that we could take on ourselves. And the way that we're getting at the soil amendment and filtration markets is we're trying to leverage our largest customers and long-standing relationships through their distribution.

So one of the things we found when we first -- I think it was 2023 when we came out of the gate, guns a-blazing saying, "We're going to go after every direct customer." But what we found is in order to market in all of these spaces that are really incredibly huge spaces like the water filtration market, you have to put a lot of manpower there. You have to put a lot of money into the marketing. So we are seeing ways to leverage these relationships in order to -- that are already standing, that in order to get to these other markets while we focus on cattle nutrition because, again, the capital expenditures required for all of these different spaces are significant.

So we've chosen to focus on cattle nutrition and leverage these long-standing customer relationships through their distribution. And we're in the process of formalizing those relationships and that distribution for filtration. And these customers are also looking into soil amendment.

[ Adding, Melissa ]. So just to follow up on that, Melissa. A lot of people don't realize that beef prices are at all-time highs today. And so cattlemen are looking for every way to get extra poundage out of their cattle before slaughter. That's what zeolite is perfectly geared for. And we're making such great headway in the cattle market that we want to stay focused, but we are looking at nutrition. In fact, we've had a couple of companies come to us for exclusive contracts. We're still deciding whether we're going to do that or not. But it is an area we definitely want to pursue, but like we're hitting the hottest iron right now, which is cattle.

Next question. Does the Iran conflict directly affect government demands for antimony?

Absolutely. Every conflict the government is involved in, whether it be Venezuela, Iran, or whether it be Israel and Lebanon, or whether it be Ukraine and Russia. You cannot fire a bullet without antimony, you need antimony for laser-guided missiles and drones. And as you know, our -- the drone business today is a lot bigger than it was 6 months or a year or 2 years ago. So yes, we've heard it loud and clear from the representatives of the government we deal with, that they want more antimony like yesterday. And so we're working very, very hard in trying to meet that demand and that goal. We'll take one more question, Jonathan. One more question, then we'll close up.

Sure. Back in 2024, PPTA and UAMY were in cooperation with each other. Are we looking at them as a possible joint venture like we have with Americas Gold and Silver?

You would have to ask that question to them. I know there's been some conversations with the CEO of Americas Gold and Silver and Perpetua. We have not had any direct conversations with them in the better part of a year. So I cannot answer that question.

And Gary, there is just one more question, which is a question we do get asked pretty frequently. The current U.S. administration has shown a good appetite for taking stakes in companies. If this ramped up and Donald Trump took an interest in mineral companies like UAMY, would UAMY dilute stock to give the government a stake?

Well, I tell everybody that I prefer not. If you look at what the government has done with the various critical and rare earth companies that they've invested in, those are typically embryonic companies that have no access to capital. They're companies that they need the government to be able to do what they're doing because they're 3, 4, 5 years away from actually generating any revenues. We're obviously not in that position. We're much better suited for receiving government grants because the government grants are obviously non-dilutive, but they expedite us moving quicker to meet the demands that the government needs and the hydromet technology that we've developed with our partners in Bolivia is a perfect example of that.

So a lot of the money, this money that I mentioned that we're looking for from the government of totaling $274 million, a big chunk of that is hydromet. It's new technology, and it's ways to do things better, faster, more economic than we're doing in the past. That's what the government is looking for. They're trying to bring the refining capacity back to the United States, but do it in a smarter way. And that's what we're excited about as it relates to Hydromet, and that's why we've been able to do the joint venture.

So I think as we make further progress building out our hydromet technology that the business will come undoubtedly. And I'm not concerned about that at all. I know of no antimony processing facility currently being contemplated in North America, 0. We're it. So we want to stay being it, and we want to continue being the -- ahead of the curve with technology, and that's what we're trying to do.

You're absolutely right. The domestic demand is already there. Thank you, Gary. I'm going to turn it back over to the operator for closing statements.

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. And I will now turn the call over to Gary C. Evans for closing remarks.

I just want to thank all of you for listening in today. I know the quarter 1 isn't exactly what you expected, but please have a little patience. As I mentioned, at year-end, we're going to have some bumpy quarters. But all in all, the results are going to be phenomenal. And we're on game plan. We're accomplishing all the goals and objectives that we've outlined to each of you, and we're excited about where we are and where we're going. So look forward to some more additional positive press releases and comments coming out.

We're trying to continue to educate the government as to who we are and what we're doing. While the federal government has got a good handle on it, we've got House members and senators in the various states that are having to be educated. So we want to be the critical mineral company the U.S. government thinks of first, and we're trying our best to be in that position. So thank you for your time, and hope you have a good rest of your week.

This concludes today's webcast, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Greetings. Welcome to the U.S. Antimony Corporation Fiscal Year 2025 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call.

[Operator Instructions]

Please note this conference call and webcast is being recorded.

I will now turn the call over to your host, Gary C. Evans, Chairman and CEO. You may begin.

Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. I'd like to start this call by introducing other members of our company's senior management team who are joining me on this year-end conference call. We have Joe Bardswich, who is not only a board member, but he's an Executive Vice President and our Chief Mining Engineer for the company; Rick Isaak, who is our Senior Vice President, as well as our Chief Financial Officer; Melissa Pagen, who's President and Chief Operating Officer of one of our wholly owned subsidiaries called Bear River Zeolite; and then Jonathan Miller, who's Vice President of Investor Relations. So before we get -- turn over this call to various members of management to talk about their divisions, I thought I would just kind of give everybody a quick overview of the notable news that was worthy in calendar 2026.

So we first announced our Tungsten acquisition, which is -- was done in June. We call that property, the [indiscernible]. It's located up in Ontario, Canada near the town of Sudbury. But more importantly, we just announced several weeks ago that this particular property, after we've acquired it and done some work, has an inferred resource value now exceeding $4.6 billion, and that's B with a billion. So we're very excited about this and Joe is going to talk a lot more about this when he is -- want the calls is turned it over to him. So another big announcement was a new $245 million contract, which has now been upgraded to $248 million with the DLA. That's a sole-source contract to deliver Antimony ingots to the U.S. government. Over 5 years, we anticipate delivering approximately $75 million of Antimony ingots in fiscal 2026. We're very close to delivering our first palette of in goods to the government.

We also announced a new $106.7 million industrial Antimony contract with a company that preferred not to be named, principally for competitive reasons. But this material that we'll be delivering and have been delivering to this company since probably June, July of last year is used for industrial fabrics and flame retardants associated with these materials. Again, this is a 5-year agreement, and I actually took the top 3 executives of this company fishing yesterday on my boat with the success we had, which was for selfish, I'm now anticipating many more years for the future business from them.

The next big announcement was we added 2 new independent Board members on the U.S. AC Board. General Jack Keane, who many you see on TVs and active report on Fox News; as well as John Marinelli. So we got a 4-star general and a banker extraordinary who I've known for 30 years, who's an extraordinary banker, has already been very helpful to our Board.

We then opened up Stibnite Hill Antimony mine up in Montana. That's where our existing smelter was built because of this mine. And we were successful in moving antimony down the mountain within weeks of opening that mine up and again, Joe Bardswich with will elaborate on this significant event further today.

We restarted our Madero Antimony smelter down in Mexico after rehiring the personnel. This location has the capacity to process approximately 200 tonnes per month of material. And you'll start seeing a lot more of that business running through our financial statements in 2026.

Then we announced the acquisition of 10% of a publicly traded company in Australia called [indiscernible] Resources Limited. We paid $37.2 million in cash, and this is a gold antimony mine is currently undeveloped that's owned by that company.

So we -- with that, I'd like to kind of get into the financial results of the company. We announced just, I guess, 20 minutes ago, our revenues were up 163%. Our gross profit was up 185%, and we, of course, talked about our 2 contracts that total $354 million. So I'm going to let Rick give you a little more detail here on our year-end results. Rick Isaak, take over.

Thanks, Gary. I'll start with some comments on our consolidated results, kind of continue on with what you had just talked about. Sales for 2025 were $39.3 million, up 163% over the prior year. Antimony sales were up primarily due to price increases and zeolite sales were up due to a combination of price and volume increases. Cost of sales increased by 156%, which was lower than our sales increase, primarily due to some favorable antimony ore purchases we completed and lower maintenance and repair costs at our zeolite facility located in Idaho. As a result of these cost efficiencies, gross profit dollars grew by $6.4 million or 185% over the prior year, and gross margin grew by 2 percentage points from 23% to 25% year-over-year. Net loss increased from $1.7 million in 2024 to $4.3 million in 2025. It's important to note, however, that included in 2025's net loss was $6.7 million of noncash expenses, whereas there was only $1.9 million of noncash expenses included in 2024's net loss. These noncash expenses were predominantly related to stock compensation to our employees and our Board.

With the improvement in this area and our other cash flow initiatives, our cash balance increased significantly. Our cash position, including our U.S. treasury securities and equity securities totaled $91.3 million at the end of 2025 compared to cash only of $18.2 million at the end of 2024. Our working capital was $44.6 million at the end of '25, which is an increase of $27.9 million compared to 2024. This increase was primarily due to increases in cash, inventory and U.S. treasury securities. Our antimony inventory increased from 78 tons at the end of '24 to 465 tons at the end of '25 and 17% of our antimony inventory at the end of '25 was from our company-owned mine that Gary mentioned that's located in Thompson Falls, Montana. We continue to maintain a very low amount of debt on our books, $195,000 at the end of 2025.

On the operations side, we became fully vertically integrated in our antimony division in 2025. On top of that, we strengthened and grew each of the 3 facets of this vertically integrated chain that will benefit 2026 and beyond. First, regarding procurement of ore, we historically procured antimony ore predominantly from one third-party source. And we now procure antimony and other critical minerals for many new sources, both internally and externally. Second, we're increasing our capacity to process these minerals into finished products. We're nearing completion on the expansion of our Thompson Falls antimony smelter that will more than triple its capacity. And we're completing the engineering phase in order to begin the construction of our new hydromet facility located in Idaho with our JV partner, Americas Gold and Silver. And to assist in funding some of this expansion, we were recently awarded $27 million from the U.S. DOW.

Third, we executed, as Gary said, 2 5-year sales contracts in 2025 to sell our finished products. We're also building our back-office infrastructure to support this growth with additional personnel and new software. In 2026, we'll implement new accounting software that will provide management with more information quicker than in the past for decision-making. We recognize the opportunity and the need for critical minerals and are going after this market for our investors and for our country. And we will continue this strategy of growth, diversification and sustainability in a planful yet tenacious manner as we have in the recent past.

I'll turn it back over to you, Gary.

Thank you, Rick. Before I turn the call over to Joe Bardswich, I want to mention something I failed to mention in my opening comments. We've continued to expand our existing mining claims in Alaska. Alaska, we believe, will be the heart of our future mining claims. And we got a late start last year due to the state delays obtaining our mining claim permits. But we think that there's a tremendous amount of potential. Joe is going to update you on a recent acquisition we completed less than 2 months ago. It may be, in fact, our most exciting antimony claim acquired by the company to date. So we have a lot of anticipation for success in Alaska.

And Joe, I'm sure, will elaborate that in his presentation. Joe? Joe, you may be on mute.

Thank you, Gary. I will start with Montana. The stibnite vein on this mountain behind the plant, Stibnite Hill has been mined by underground methods. The mining operations were shut down by the company in 1983 when the decision was made to relocate to Mexico. With much higher antimony prices, the decision was made to relook at our Montana Stibnite Hill prospects, but from the vantage of a surface operation instead of going back underground as previously mined. The veins on Stibnite Hill are about 2 feet in thickness, very flat line dipping at about 25 degrees, making it difficult to mine from underground. However, advances in excavation equipment design has made it possible to excavate this narrow vein from surface. A full description of our mining methods, including the concurrent reclamation program is posted on our web page.

During October and early November of last year, we undertook a surface trenching exploration program followed by a mining program, and we're able to truck 50 loads of ore from the excavation site to our Radersburg, Montana flotation mill. That added up to slightly more than 800 tonnes of material grading about 10% antimony. We anticipate that as soon as we complete upgrades to the Radersburg mill, which are underway, we will be able to produce material meeting military specs for primers for ammunition. The Radersburg mill is a modern flotation mill. Our metallurgical team will operate it efficiently and economically and will also include some upgrades.

I need to mention the work of our consulting geologists at Stibnite Hill, Peter Mejstrick, who spearheaded the exploration and mining operations there. I've worked with Peter previously in underground operations. He's a good geologist and understands mining and the importance of grade control. He was present in the hole for every bucket that was dumped into the trucks last year. We shut down when winter hit, and we will open up again as soon as the snow is gone, which we expect could be as early as 30 days from now. And we'll carry that operation on right through to next winter. Montana DEQ has been very reasonable to work with at Stibnite Hill. We will be permitted for an anticipated 6 to 7 months of our mining program in 2026.

Turning to Alaska. We planned a program in the Ester Dome area similar to what we did in Montana. We submitted applications for permits in April of last year. Delays in obtaining permits on our option state mining claims forced us to acquire private patented mining claims, which required a lesser degree of permitting as compared to state or federal lands. So if we could get our program started at some point last year. We dealt for land covering the former Mohawk Gold Mine, which also reported a large quantity of antimony. Before we could proceed in Mohawk, we had to undertake a cleanup program on the property, which was being used as a dumping ground by whomever.

In September, we finally obtained our permits from the State of Alaska. We started out the trenching program, found the shares and veins containing the stibnite on the Mohawk, but they were not in sufficient quantity to be economic. We're able to reclaim these trenches before winter weather shut us down, and we will continue with this trenching program in 2026. However, this year, we will tie it into an air track drill program to enable more positive definition of areas to be excavated and be able to plan the depth of the excavation from the drilling information.

We also purchased a large property adjacent to the main highway in Fox, Alaska and very close to the Department of Transport scales, along with several buildings that can use -- that can be used as offices, storage and living quarters. Before the onset of winter, we poured a large reinforced concrete slab to be used as a base for an upgrading, sorting, packaging and palletizing operation to prepare stibnite for standard highway semi-truck transportation of stibnite to our Montana operations.

We acquired the McDonald Creek property, about 265 miles north of Fairbanks from a trustee sale. We have been monitoring the news about this property since our arrival in Alaska and considered it to be one of the prime opportunities for stibnite in the state. The gold content of the material is also an added bonus. U.S. Antimony have the people, the expertise and the financial wherewithal to properly clean up this site and to continue the exploration and production program at the property deserves. An application for a notice level permit to cover cleanup exploration, road construction and the excavation of a 1,000 tonne bulk sample has been filed with the BLM with a copy to the state. We are working on the filing of a plan of operations that would include the underground mining of the stibnite and gold that makes up the major portion of the vein running into the side of a hill.

An independent 43-101 technical report written by a professional geologist well known to the U.S. antimony staff and commissioned by the previous owner stated a reserve of 42,400 tonnes grading 28% antimony and 0.408 ounces of gold per tonne on site. We confirm with the author that, that material is still there. The in-situ metal value at today's metal prices is close to $7,000 per tonne for a total value of approximately $297 million. The property cost is $1.3 million. The first property that we staked in Alaska covered the MK copper deposit. 13 samples taken by geologists in the State of Alaska geological assessment program yielded values averaging 16.5% copper, 2.2 ounces of silver and 0.08 ounces of gold per tonne. That is in excess of $2,000 per tonne. We have contracted with an Alaska-based professional geological services company for the supply of professional geologists and also contracted with a core drilling firm to drill the MK deposit this summer with possible movement of the drill to the Nolan Creek deposit.

This contracting firm are well known by our full-time geologists, Rod Blakestad and Rebecca Gower. Even with that help, we will soon be very busy in Alaska. We will also continue our programs in Ontario, Canada. Work on the Iron Mask high-grade cobalt nickel project was shut down for the winter months. After clearing, grubbing and mechanical stripping of the bedrock, followed by hand cleaning, power washing and Clorox cleaning of the rock to eliminate the surface oxidation [indiscernible], the bedrock was mapped, sampled with samples submitted for age dating and chemical analysis. The mapping program determined that the high-grade zone was cut off by a younger diabase dike. This was a disappointment. Our future efforts will start with attempts to pick up continuation of the high-grade zone on the other side of the dike.

At the Fostung tungsten deposit, we successfully collected a bulk sample with portion sent to Sepro Metallurgical in Vancouver for gravity testing and to Lakefield Research in Lakefield, Ontario to conduct a metallurgical test and upgrading the Sheelate containing the tungsten into a salable product. We engaged the Toronto Office of Independent geological consulting firm, SRK Consulting to author a technical report meeting the SEC's SK-1300 requirements. They calculate an inferred mineral resource of 14,770,000 metric tons, grading 0.17% WO3 tungsten trioxide and containing 54.17 million pounds of tungsten, in other words, metal WO3 with a future gross value of $4.6 billion based on recent tungsten pricing. SRK has recommended additional drilling to test for extensions of the mineralization on strike to the southwest of the deposit where the geological conditions are favorable. Our final technical report on this project will be filed with the SEC next week.

We've built a great team of geologists and mining engineers to go along with our acknowledged leadership in the metallurgical treatment and production of antimony products. The prospectors, geologists and property owners involved in the exploration for critical minerals in the U.S. and Canada recognize our strength, and we enjoy a most favored status when we were looking for and negotiating terms for the acquisition of additional critical mineral properties of Merit. We'll continue down this path.

Thank you. Over to you, Gary.

Thanks, Joe. And before I turn over the call to the next speaker, I just want to say a few things about what Joe has accomplished for our company. To think that we just really started back mining about a year and 3 months ago and to look at what we've achieved, we've moved 800 tons of rock off the mountain in Montana after just 2 weeks of work. We've got tremendous assets in Alaska. We have a new acquisition we completed a couple of months ago that Joe just described that we will be filing. We'll be doing a new resource report on that. It's very unusual to be able to buy an acquisition like that and have a reserve report that's already been commissioned in earlier years. The property up in Canada, the tungsten Fostung property to have the kind of resource report that we'll be filing with the SEC next week, showing $4.6 billion of tungsten. There hasn't been tungsten mined in the United States in 12 years.

So to think that we have 3 active projects, Montana, Alaska and Canada in critical minerals in less than a year and 3 months shows you the speed and the type of professional people that work at this company. And I give them the credit. We've got great geologists in Alaska. We just hired a new mining engineer to assist Joe. We have contract geologists in Montana, contract geologists up in Canada. And we are doing things in warp speed. And it's a different view than a typical mining company that takes 5, 10 and 15 years to do something. We're doing it now. And that is what is so different and what investors need to take a hard look and see what we're doing that you're going to see immediate results. You'll see some of these results in 2026, a lot more of them in 2027, and that is very unusual for a company of this type being still considered a small miner.

So now I'd like to turn the call over to Melissa Pagen. Melissa has been promoted as President and Chief Operating Officer of our Bear River division. Bear River is our zeolite company. It's located up in Preston, Idaho. When I first got involved with this company 3 years ago, I focused on trying to get that particular property up and running. It had -- it was in really dismal shape. We had to change management. We brought new people in, and that operation is really running smoothly. Joe had the foresight last year to instigate a reserve report, which we did. I think we drilled 80-some-odd holes up there, determined we have a 400-year reserve life with some of the highest quality zeolite, we believe, in the world. And that reserve report is filed with the SEC, and you can take a look at it.

So now that we know we have our operation running good. We got good people. We have a tremendous reserve of zeolite at this property, it's now time to increase sales. We had some small increase in sales in 2025, but I think you'll see dramatic increase in sales in 2026, and that is what Melissa and her team are working so hard to do.

So Melissa, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, Gary. Hi, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. So since stepping into my new management role in January, my overarching goal has been to bring market focus and structure to BRZ as we position it for our future growth objectives. So we have 3 initial priorities, and those are strategic focus, operational capabilities to support our focus and continued efforts toward increasing our visibility in these focused markets. So first, one of the realities of working with a material like zeolite is that it has a really broad range of potential applications. That versatility is certainly one of its greatest strengths, but that can also create a temptation for a small company like BRZ to pursue too many opportunities at once, which can spread a lean team too thin.

So that makes 2 primary segments our priority where we already have traction and where we believe we can build meaningful market presence, and that's water treatment and agriculture. And water treatment is already approximately 75% of our revenue. So we are working on reaching more of our core filtration media business through conference circuits, networking, and the launch of social media marketing channels with the adoption of an AI agentic tool. This can be done -- if this can be done securely, and I'm still learning on that front, but I think this tool can be really helpful for marketing in a small company. I'm also exploring long-term supply contracts with customers in drinking water treatment who are aggressively growing their own footprint. Previously, BRZ has not done supply contracts, but I think this path will only contribute to long-term stability.

We're also in discussions with the University of North Carolina, where chemists who have used BRZ's zeolite to successfully capture both long chain and short-chain PFAS, which you all know are forever chemicals found almost everywhere that build up in the body and cause health problems over time. So in general, expanding into modified zeolite had great potential in our growth objectives that could open up untapped areas of water treatment for us. We'd also like to explore zeolite installations for nuclear remediation readiness, which is a use zeolite has historically demonstrated a strong and critically important performance. And I think it's worth noting here that our production of material for water treatment applications naturally produces the majority of the material required for cattle feed operations applications. So -- and that's the second priority. So agricultural applications, specifically cattle nutrition and strengthening our operational capabilities so we can support larger bulk customers and ultimately increase our throughput.

So BRZ recently became the supplier to a significant cattle nutrition business, which essentially was an overnight transition. So to support this new influx of cattle nutrition business, this meant that BRZ which historically operated almost entirely under FOB shipping terms and provided package shipments, we began operating within a completely new logistical framework to support delivered pricing with bulk trucks filled by silos that our facility team was able to implement way ahead of what we had scheduled. So in the coming months, as we support this transition toward more bulk-oriented business, we've begun implementing several practical infrastructure upgrades at the facility.

So one of the key challenges ahead will be balancing this capital investment required to service these customers at scale and expand production with the demand we're beginning to see develop. So we're approaching those decisions carefully to ensure that any capital expenditures are aligned with clear market demand and long-term value creation. And from a production standpoint, as Gary mentioned earlier, we're very well positioned to support the growth. The deposit itself is very large and high quality. And operationally, the plant also has meaningful room to scale through work shift adjustments and perhaps some automation if we can get that in there. So we're also evaluating a potential use of regional transloading yard of a regional transloading yard, which could allow us to stage product closer to clusters of customers, reduce delivery times and expand the geographic areas where we can compete efficiently.

And last, our third priority has been increasing our visibility in the markets that we serve. BRZ has been working on this since about the end of 2024, and the market response to BRZ's increased exposure, honestly, even in the past couple of months has been extremely encouraging. So BRZ was a sponsor and exhibitor at a recent American Feed Industry Association Conference. And I attended this with our Agricultural Sales Manager, Jocelyn Mendet, who has a Masters in dairy nutrition and spends most of her time around cattle. She previously worked for Diamond V, which is a Cargill company. And for all 3 days of this conference, we were in back-to-back discussions with serious and enthusiastic buyers who are already setting additional meetings. So BRZ has done an enormous amount of work to iron out systems, equipment lines, implement has programs and other validating licensing and certifications. And the team has also done the work to zero in on where we need to take our bullhorn in the marketplace -- and in the past couple of months, I think that work is really starting to show results. So we are excited about the foundation that's being built for future growth, and we look forward to being able to show the results.

Thank you.

And Melissa, I'm to put you on the spot here for a minute. I know you hate doing that. I know that from some of the reports I've read that you've gotten like maybe 4 or 5 new customers since you came on in January and...

More than that. Yes. it's going to be more than that.

I know. And then I've also seen the only new customers also still seeing greater sales. So I think what we're telling you as our investor public is that we're already seeing the results of the things that we've been working on to get new business. And a lot of these businesses from Fortune 100 companies. We're talking some of the biggest public companies and private companies in the business. And so this has been a sleeper asset for U.S. antimony for years, and we're now -- we have all the ingredients together to really make this into a much bigger enterprise of U.S. antimony.

And if it gets big enough, we'll spin it off to our shareholders. So that's the goal in the next 2, 3, 4 years. So I'm very excited about what I see with the zeolite business. We know we have really high-quality material. It's an easy sale if you're getting in front of the right people with the right salespeople. And I think between Melissa and her team, they can do it. So that's exciting for me.

Let's now before we turn it over to Jonathan Miller, who's our VP of Investor Relations, who helps me tremendously on the road and doing all the roadshows we do, the investor conferences and presentations. One thing I did fail to mention in my opening comments is that we are now dual listed on securities -- with our securities on both the New York Stock Exchange, Texas Exchange is called the NYSE Texas as well as last week, we were approved for an uplisting to the Big Board from the NYSE American to the of the Big Board Exchange. So we've accomplished a lot of getting more visibility out to our institutional and retail investors, and Jonathan is going to give you the overview of 2025. Jonathan?

Thank you, Gary. During 2025, we have successfully transformed United States Antimony's capital in the markets profile in the marketplace. We enter 2025 as a predominantly retail-driven microcap company. We exited the year as an institutional sponsor a critical minerals company with materially improved liquidity, valuation support and market credibility. The results are clear. Our share price increased from $1.78 to $5.02, and 182% gain. At the same time, market capitalization expanded from $201 million to $703 million, up 250%.

From a financial standpoint, we delivered 160% revenue growth and increased total liquidity from $18 million to approximately $90 million, strengthening both the balance sheet and our strategic flexibility. But the most important shift has been in ownership of our securities. Institutional participation has scaled rapidly. Last year alone, me and Gary met with over 350 funds for one-on-one meetings. Based on the most recent 13F filings, we now have 222 institutional holders up from just 48 in Q4 2024, with 91 new funds entering in Q4 alone. Importantly, this includes some of the most sophisticated investors globally, BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Stage 2 Sigma, Citadel, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and UBS, signaling that UAMY now meets the liquidity, governance and risk thresholds required by larger institutional capital funds. And to contrast that briefly, when me and Gary started marketing in July 2024, the majority of the funds we were meeting with averaged around $50 million to $200 million AUM. So this is very different from where we came from.

As a result, institutional ownership has grown to approximately 40%, driving meaningful improvements in trading depth, ride stability, liquidity and overall market efficiency. We are now consistently trading around 15 million shares per day, enabling larger position sizing and more efficient price discovery. In parallel, our uplisting to the NYSE Main Board just a week ago has expanded our visibility and eligibility across institutional mandates, further accelerating adoption.

Just as important, we have successfully aligned our investor narrative with national security and domestic supply chain priorities, positioning U.S. Antimony as a strategically relevant platform in critical minerals. That alignment has driven a clear market rerating from a story-driven company to an execution-driven investment. In short, we built a significantly stronger capital markets foundation with a growing institutional shareholder base, improved liquidity and trading efficiency, expanded research coverage and investor access and enhanced flexibility to support future growth and strategic initiatives. We believe this positioning will continue to drive long-term shareholder value as we continue to execute on our operational and strategic priorities.

Our marketing and public relations strategy continues to evolve. Many of you may have recently seen our television campaigns across leading news and business networks both linear and streaming. These efforts are designed to elevate awareness across the strategic importance of domestic critical mineral production, particularly antimony, and our significant role in that space and position that conversation within the broader national and economic dialogue. We're no longer just introducing our story, we're now scaling institutional ownership along well-thought-out execution on many different fronts. Back to you, Gary.

Thank you, Jonathan. That was so good, I think I may go buy some stock. Let's see. Before we go into our questions from callers, I'd like to give you just kind of a little thumbnail overview of what you, as an investor, should expect from this company in fiscal 2026. Obviously, we're 2.5 months into that, but I want to give you some things to just go home with. Number one, we will always maintain solid financial footing. What that means is we will have minimal, if any, debt, and we'll have cash or cash equivalents on our balance sheet. I am adamant that this business being the mining business, needs to have only equity and very little debt. You're going to see more government funding. We have a new gentleman that we hired about 4 months ago in D.C. that is helping us tremendously with the various pockets of the U.S. federal government that has money available. I don't think it's appropriate for me to tell you all the things we have done, but I will tell you right now, we have filings in with the government for new funding on new projects. We have another one going out [indiscernible] out today, it's going out tomorrow. We have others planned over the next few weeks. So we are hitting various divisions of the U.S. government because we think, with our credibility now in the marketplace, with the projects that we have got going on, with the funding we've already received, when we received a $27 million award a couple of weeks ago related to our Thompson Falls expansion that we're well suited to go obtain additional funding, not only for antimony, but for tungsten and other critical minerals.

Let's talk about Thompson Falls expansion. As you know, we began that expansion in May of last year. We thought it would be done in December, January. I'm telling you today, it's now not going to be done until May. And why? Why is it that we are 5 months behind schedule? It has primarily due to delays from suppliers and third parties that we have no control over. Our main third-party delays has been our general contractor who was over a month late in designing our concrete pad. We had to build a concrete pad there on that location that would withstand earthquakes from California. And if you went and witnessed it, it's like a bomb shoulder. We also had delays from the contractor that was erecting our building and part of that had to do with weather. Obviously, we've been building this facility in the middle of winter.

The last item was our heat exchangers. Heat exchangers come from a major equipment supplier, and they were always running a couple of months late. Now they've been running longer than 4 months late. We are on the phone, talking to them all the time and obviously can't do anything about a third party being delinquent in delivering their equipment, but that's the case. So -- but if you think about what we've done, this is a substantial expansion that we've done in a year. We got the permits, we got the construction and we're down to the 90-yard line. There's work going on every day. We have weekly updates. And so we are -- don't anticipate seeing any financial results in the first quarter of 2026 related to the expansion of Thompson Falls.

The other thing I'd like to make note of is we're in a business that's volatile. Obviously, antimony prices have moved up, they've moved down, they've come in back up again. And we buy antimony from 6 different countries today. And if you look at our financial statements at year-end, you'll see the highest amount of inventory this company has ever had. That should give you comfort that we now have the inventory to start meeting some of the contractual obligations of the DLA. And as I mentioned, we're getting ready to make our first shipment to them. So when you look at the financials in 2026, they're going to be bumpy. There's going to be quarters like, oh, that looks like not so good. And there's going to be quarters like, wow, they blew it out of the park. You've got to look at the whole year. We are very firm on our guidance of $125 million. We know how much we'll be delivering to the DLA. We have material in hand, material on the water. We now have our own mine in Montana. So the future estimates of giving financial guidance will be a lot solid going forward. But I'm telling you it's going to be bumpy in 2026. There will be quarters that will be lower and there will be quarters that are going to be much higher. That we can't do anything about. But when you look at the overall effect of 2026, it's going to be right where you think it will be.

The other thing that I want to mention is that we're continuing to advance and look at other critical minerals. You're not aware of what those are. We have lots of meetings and lots of discussions with the government and without the government of what they're looking for. And the beauty of this mining business is, and the people that we have involved in our Board, in our management team is they know where the crown jewels are hidden, and we get invite to look at things almost every day. We're looking at new projects, new areas. And those -- the one thing that is a major characteristic of what we will and want to look at is time, speed. We will not look at something that will take 2 years or 3 years. It's got to be now. And so when you see us do a project, just like the one we just bought in Alaska, we bought that in a trustee sell 1.5 months ago from 1.3 million, and we're going to be mining on it probably within 2 to 3 months. That is unheard of, and we're moving as fast as humanly possible to get these things to the point of where you, as a shareholder, can realize the value through our financial statements.

So with that, I'd like to answer some questions I got from a couple of shareholders before we go to our listeners out there. And these are, I think, some pretty good questions. So the first 1 is the Thompson Falls expansion was originally estimated in January. Well, obviously, I just described that's going to be May now, and I'll explain why.

The USS agreement, that's the Americas Gold and Silver agreement. When will that ore be flowing? That -- just to give you an idea, we didn't really talk about this today, but we signed a joint venture agreement about 1.5 months ago Americas Gold and Silver, symbol is USAS. And that is a joint venture to build a new hydromet facility on land that they've donated to joint venture that's fully permitted in Idaho, where they have 3 silver mines ongoing where we will process their antimony. We already process their antimony today. It goes up to a plant in Canada and then we get the residual product that we handle there in Thompson Falls. That's our primary source of antimony today is through United States -- or through this company in Canada. So what we'll be doing is building a hydromet to process antimony right there on site. We are in the planning stage, the budgeting stage, the engineering stage. In fact, there's a whole group of us both from the United States -- I mean, Americas Gold and Silver and United States Antimony going to Bolivia at the end of the month to look at our commercial-grade hydromet facility that we financed, that's bringing us now 150 tonnes a month of antimony flake that will go into our smelters.

So we're looking at the facility. We funded to make it a commercial scale because we're going to be duplicating that facility on a larger scale in Idaho. So that's with our partners at Americas Gold and Silver. So we have a lot of meetings on that. We're very excited since we've announced that joint venture, which will be the largest hydromet facility in North America. We're getting calls from other antimony producers or producers that want to be that want to bring their material to us. So we are looking at most likely having different phases of that project, Phase I, Phase II, Phase III to expand it.

Another question is the tungsten deposit. What is the strategy to develop this resource? Given the size and potential cost of developing the project, are we planning on bringing in a joint venture partner? The answer is no. This is an open pit mine, which allows us to do things a lot quicker, a lot easier and a lot cheaper. And Joe and his team have got a plan and we're -- our goal is to try to get that tungsten deposit to an existing refinery as soon as possible. We are making an application with the U.S. government to fund that project.

Do we have the ability to develop it in-house? Absolutely.

Can we process low quality ore at the new hydromet facility? Absolutely. That's the whole idea behind Hydromet is we can take much lower quality antimony, much lower concentration levels into that facility without having -- without -- it's something we couldn't do in our existing gas smelters.

There was also a question about Radersburg. That's our flotation facility, our contact mill in Radersburg, Montana. Will the hydro material need to go there? Answer is no. We will just go right into hydromet. The Radersburg is going to be handling like most of the Montana material. That's where that material is sitting today waiting to be processed. Our Vice President of our Antimony Division is in the process of upgrading that. I think as we mentioned, when we bought that a few months ago, and that should be up and running soon.

So those are some questions that should help our audience and now, operator, if you don't mind, turning over to our first outside listener.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is, with elevated inventory, expected ramp of Montana Mining and expanded smelting capacity, how do you see the production mix evolving over the next 12 to 18 months, particularly as you see Alaska's potentials growing into the heart of your future mining ops? And how will you see your planned mix meat and your existing government and offtake commitments?

Okay. That's kind of a long-winded question, but I'll see if I can answer it. First of all, we would love to be mining all of our own antimony. Why? That's the cheapest antimony we could ever find on planet Earth. And so we think we can mine it for less than $5 a pound, where we're buying it today for maybe $8, $9, $10 a pound. We were buying it for $15 to $18 a pound a few months ago. So having that low cost of ore is so important to guaranteeing your profit margins. But more than that, it also gives you reliability. I can't tell you how many times over the past year, a transload was delayed or getting the ore to the port was delayed or there was customs delay. We had material confiscated by the Chinese government for 6 months. I mean, there's always something. And a lot of this antimony doesn't come from the most friendly countries. So having more control of our destiny with our own material is where we want to be. And we'll accomplish that, not only with the mine in Alaska and the activities we have -- I mean, the mining in Montana, the activity that we have in Alaska, but when the hydromet facility comes online, that material all comes to us. So it still has to be processed in our furnaces.

So that will give us a significant assurity, and we hope to have that up and running in about the next year to 1.5 years. So that will have a significant impact on our future. So today, we are still getting 100% of our antimony from foreign sources. That will change soon as the material we took from Montana is processed in Radersburg, which should be over the next month or 2. And then that mine will open back up. Weather -- fortunately, the weather in Montana was much milder in 2025, '26, the weather in Alaska was much colder. So Alaska may be delayed May, June, but Montana could be open in the next 3 weeks. So we're anxious to get back up on the mountain and get back to doing what we were doing last year so successfully.

Next question.

You mentioned that you're facing 4-month delays on an equipment supplier. Are you able to switch, evaluate other vendors to try to avoid equipment delays? Are there options available?

Unfortunately not. This is very specialized equipment that was ordered from these particular contractors, and we obviously try to stay with only U.S. contractors, and the answer is no. We have to wait until they deliver.

Can you give us an update on the magnitude of ore shipments from Alaska? How many tonnes of ore output could you ramp up to? And how does this translate to finished pounds?

Well, good question. I don't have an answer yet, but I will tell you what my geologist says, I'm going to hold him to it. He says, we're going to have you, Gary, 1,000 tonnes a month. Why I'm saying that'll be happy with 200 tonnage a month. So we'll know a whole lot more what's going to come out of Alaska, obviously, by summer/fall. We won't know in the early part of the year. But these properties I just mentioned that we bought in the trust see sale that Joe gave further information on really has a lot of antimony on the ground. It's visible, the veins are visible. So we're going to try to hit that first. So we've already filed permits for it. And the goal is to get as much of that into -- it will -- all that material will go to Radersburg. So it will be processed just like the Montana material. It's a higher concentrate of stibnite, maybe 40% to 60%. And Joe, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think the Montana material is more 10%. So it's higher quality from the standpoint of concentration.

The next question says, Hi, Gary. With the U.S. government in need of refills on munitions, have there been any talks between you guys and defense firms and/or the U.S. government about supporting them at this time to replenish those supplies?

Well, we're already we're supporting them. That's the $248 million contract we won in September of last year. There are discussions always ongoing. We keep a very high dialogue going on at any given time with senators, house members, governors. And as I mentioned before, General [indiscernible] is on our board. So we kind of hear what's going on. There's a lot of need for additional munitions, as everybody knows, with the activities we've had in Venezuela and now Iran. It's not just us, it's NATO countries as well. So no question that the demand for what we do is going up. And I think it's likely that you'll see some additional needs coming from the government to us.

The next question is, can you give us a sense for the progress at Thompson Falls in terms of the expansion? How much of the expansion is left to complete? How does this translate to shipments throughout the balance of 2026?

Yes, I think I've already answered that question. Again, the expansion is going to be completed in May. So we're still about almost 2 months away from that, all due to a delay of equipment. There's work going on there every day, though. I mean, I talked to our VP Mechanical Engineers in charge of the expansion, and we're on top of it. We don't want to shut down our existing smelter until this one is ready to go because we are going to do some improvements in the existing smelter to improve its efficiency. It's also important to note that once we start receiving the Bolivian material, which should be the next 30 to 45 days, that allows us to process much more material than numbers we've given you. In other words, if we get 150 tonnes a month out of Bolivia, it's 90% concentrate. So what that means is it doesn't have to spend nearly as much time in those smelters to become -- to make metal ingots for the DLA. So we're really excited about that. And of course, that will be the same case when we complete the JV with Americas Gold and Silver building that hydromet facility. That facility will give us 90% antimony flake that will go into our furnaces.

So what it enables us to do is run a whole lot more material than lower-grade antimony. So that's another reason we're very excited about the hydromet process.

What is your appetite for M&A at this time? Do you see other opportunities in the public markets, or do you remain focused on project level opportunities?

It's a good question. We look at both. We haven't seen anything on the M&A front that has really appealed to us. It has to be a company that is growing at the speed we're growing. I mean, we just reported today just under $40 million of revenues, and we're going to triple that in 2026. So it's hard to find another company that has the kind of growth that we have that would make an M&A attraction.

Now we are looking at companies that have maybe specific critical minerals that are closer to coming to fruition, where we might help fund them, we might become a joint venture partner, we might become a shareholder, we might do something to help them expedite what they're doing. So we look at those all the time. We've looked at 2 this week in spec. And the problem with most of them is that they're still 3 years, 4 years away. We're not willing to look that far out. It's got to be within a year to 2 years for us to really get excited about it because we're on a much faster track than most companies.

Does USAC currently have contracts with battery-making facilities?

We do not have any long-term contracts, but those discussions are ongoing.

What is your plan for Larvotto Resources, a company whom you purchased 50 million shares of?

Yes. We're the largest shareholder of Larvotto, an Australian Minor. Their mine is not -- it's called the Hillgrove mine, it's not up in operations yet. I think it's also been delayed probably more like a July, August event. We have investment bankers that are consulting with us on Larvotto. We have not yet made a decision on what we're going to do there. So at this point, it's just an investment.

What are your thoughts on the current macro environment and potential supply shocks that could occur if trade tensions flare out more between the U.S. and China?

Well, remember, China has already cut off all shipments of antimony. They did that in September. of '24. They also cut off all shipments of tungsten in the same time. So I don't think anything that we're doing with China 1 way or another is going to affect our business. It's already been affected. So now are we seeing leakage out of China of antimony going into Malaysia or Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea, possibly. We've also seen some of that get cut off. So China is doing its best trying to make sure the antimony does not leak out of their country. And there still is a worldwide shortage of antimony, no doubt about it.

So while price is escalated from $5 o $30, came back down to $12, $14, $16 and they're still up significantly from where we were 3 years ago, and our contracts protect us to a large degree. So we feel good about the business. And We want to be a major force of controlling 25% to 50% of U.S. antimony needs, and that's where we're going with our Hydromet facilities and our own mining operations.

Very interesting and having used BRZ in challenging filtration projects, I think that has tremendous potential for growth.

Is that a question or a statement?

It's a statement. I love it.

Yes. There you go. Melissa, you get your marching orders.

I love that. Yes. Thank you. I'm inspired.

Next question, let's see here is, how has the price of antimony and zeolite moved over the past 12 to 18 months? What does the investment into the Australian company mean for you -- to you?

Okay. Well, I'll answer the last question first, and then I'll answer the first question. We made the investment in Larvotto because we had the intent at the time of taking over the company. We made an offer for the company. It was an all-stock offer, and that was rejected. So we have done nothing since that occurred. Now there were some reasons that we have done nothing. There are some Australian laws concerning when a company tenders for stock in the open market, there are certain restrictions. Those restrictions have all expired. They expired mostly in February. And so our hands are no longer tied as related to what we want to do. We have highly qualified bankers helping us make decisions there. We don't think there's a gun at our head making us make any decision right now. And so we're looking at the overall situation, and we're going to do what we think is the very best thing for our shareholders. And that is what our Board and our management team is incentivized to do. And so will something happen with Larvotto? Maybe, but a lot of it is going to be dependent upon their management and their Board of what they do and they don't want to do. So if we can't come to an agreement of the mines, then we'll sell our stock position, as simple as that.

With respect to the other question, remind me what it was.

Looks like it was removed from the queue.

You remember what it was, Melissa.

I don't.

Yes, I don't either. We will just have to...

zeolite question the same.

The question to say I think it had to do with growth of lie. So we did have growth in sales and pricing with respect to light went up a little bit. If you look at our antimony sales in 2025, they were pretty flat. The really growth was in price as I've told, new investors have been coming to our stock, that's going to change in 2026. It's mostly going to be volume related. The growth will all be volume, not price. And so we have a significant ramp-up coming. As I said, it's going to be bumpy, but I feel really good about where we'll be by the end of the year.

This is in a price answer on zeolite. But I can say with this influx of this new bulk business, it certainly changes the margin because the bulk product is a much lower cost for us. So while we're not increasing the prices, we'll still make much better margin on that.

Operator, I think we'll take 1 more question because it's been right in an hour, okay?

Certainly. What is the status regarding the cobalt property?

The cobalt property, as Joe outlined, we did enough work on it to recognize that we need to make some other changes for competitive reasons, I really not rather speak as to what we're going to do, but we do have plans there. And once we get those plans completed, we'll be happy to voice them. But it is not nearly as far along as the tungsten property. Obviously, the tungsten property, we have now a resource report. As I said, we'll be filing that next week with SEC of shows future revenues of $4.6 billion. So that is a real high priority of getting that property up and running. We hope that to be the very first tungsten property in operation in 12 years in North America. And that's something badly needed by our government. Tungsten is necessary for tanks and for submarines. It's the second hardest mineral behind diamonds. And if you go to Home Depot and buy a drill bit, that's a tungsten drill bit. So we're very excited about where that stands. We are looking at other tungsten opportunities. We're trying to beef up that area of our company. We tried to bid on one last year where we would beat out by another company we just weren't willing to pay the price they paid. So we are very frugal. We're not going to buy something just to buy it. It's got to be priced right and under the radar for us to be interested.

Thank you. We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session, and I will now turn the call over to management for closing remarks.

We had a great year, going to have another great year in 2026. We thank all of you for being investors in our company. Hopefully, you did well in the stock, but you're going to do a whole lot better in the future years, I think. We got -- we have a lot of irons in the fire, as you heard today, and we have to execute. You can see that we've executed in the past and we plan to execute in the future. And it's a matter bolting on and building this organization is something that all of you can be very proud of.

We have a unique relationship with the U.S. government. As the only antimony supplier, we are a sole source contract under our DLA and now we're going to expand that even further. And so we are in a perfect position as being a first mover to capture a lot more business, and that's what we're after today. Thank you very much for your time, and we look forward to communicating with you again in the future.

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Greetings. Welcome to the United States Antimony Corporation Third Quarter and Nine Months Ended September 30, 2025, Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. Please note this conference call and webcast is being recorded.

I will now turn the call over to your host, Gary C. Evans, Chairman and CEO. You may begin.

Thank you, Paul, and welcome to our listeners today. Thank you, Paul, and welcome to our listeners today.First, I'd like to start by introducing other members of our company's management team that are joining me on this conference call today. We have Joe Bardswich, who's a Director and Executive Vice President and our Chief Mining Engineer; Rick Isaak, who's Senior Vice President as well as our Chief Financial Officer. We've got a new participant today, Aaron Tenesch, who's Vice President of our Antimony division; and then Jonathan Miller, who's Vice President of Investor Relations.

So I thought I would start today out doing something a little different and give everybody a little lesson on antimony because there's no question as I've gone around the country, whether it be with investors or bankers or stock brokers, even the government, a lot of people don't know what antimony is. So let me give you just a little bit of education here.

Antimony is one of those raw materials that has historically been completely unknown to the public. But for the military and industrial sectors, this mineral is absolutely essential. So, in military applications, antimony is diverse and far-reaching. Antimony alloys play a significant role in making ammunition production that extremely difficult to replace. Hard lead alloys enriched with antimony significantly increase the hardness and the dimensional stability of projectiles. This not only improves penetration and accuracy, but also enables more consistent ballistics, which is essential for reliable weapons. In percussion caps and ignition mixtures, antimony sulfide, also known as stibnite ensure the reliable ignition of the propellant. This is an application where failure rates can lead to catastrophic failures.

Furthermore, antimony in specialized forms is used extensively in high-frequency electronics and sensor technology. It is essential for night vision devices such as cameras and goggles, thermal imaging cameras, infrared sensors and used in modern warheads, drones, reconnaissance systems and air-to-ground communication systems. These are technique technologies that define our modern warfare today.

In civilian applications, antimony is invaluable, primarily as an alloying element. When antimony is combined with lead, it fundamentally alters material science. In car batteries, lead always contains small amounts of antimony to ensure the necessary structural integrity of the battery. The global automotive and energy storage industries would be inconceivable without this rare critical element.

The industrial applications of antimony extend far beyond batteries though. In glass making, it's an indispensable refiner. It is used to remove bubbles and defects from molting glass and to improve the optical quality of that instrument. Antimony has gained increasing importance, particularly in the solar industry as it enhances the transparent and light transmission of solar glass modules. With the global expansion of solar energy, demand for high-quality solar glass has risen exponentially. And I just read within the last three weeks that China has come up with a new solar panel that is about 12% more efficient, which is huge in the solar panel business and it's all because of antimony.

So the majority of antimony use, however, is in flame retardants. People don't realize this. Approximately 30% to 40% of the world's antimony production is used to manufacture flame retardants for use in plastics, textiles and polymers. This is not just an academic chemistry issue, but one that protects human lives.

So, with that, I'd like to turn over our call to Rick Isaak. He's going to give more details regarding our operating and financial results. Rick is our CFO. And Rick, do you want to take it from here?

Sure, sure. Thanks, Gary. I'll start with some comments on our consolidated operating results and then go to the balance sheet.

Sales for the first nine months of this year were $26.2 million, up $16.9 million or 182% over the prior year. This increase was largely due to price increases with some volume increase in our zeolite business. Looking ahead, our antimony sales volume increased in October with some of the expansion efforts that we've been talking about, and our consolidated sales were $5.6 million for the month of October compared to third quarter sales of $8.7 million.

Our gross margin increased by 4 percentage points from 24% last year to 28% this year. There'll be some pressure on our gross margins in the fourth quarter with a declining antimony market price. We're looking to offset as much of this decline as we can with lower costs and higher-margin long-term contracts. Also, we're pushing to increase antimony sales volume to increase our gross profit dollars and generate more cash flow.

Our consolidated net loss was $4.1 million for the first nine months of this year. However, this loss included $5.2 million of noncash expenses.

From a cash flow perspective, our operating activities generated positive cash flow when you exclude working capital changes, which I'll talk a little bit about later. And that positive cash flow improved compared to the same period last year.

Next, looking at the balance sheet. There were three main drivers that increased several accounts more significantly in our balance sheet. First, antimony inventory was up about 300,000 pounds this year, which increased our working capital accounts, I guess, specifically inventory, prepaids, accounts receivable, accounts payable. The sales value of our inventory similarly increased from about $3 million at the end of last year to $9 million at the end of the third quarter of this year using today's antimony market price for both values. Second, we acquired mining claims this year in Alaska, Canada and Montana, and we're expanding our Montana processing facility. And these were the main drivers increasing our fixed asset balance. Third, nearly $43 million of cash was generated this year from the exercise of pre-existing warrants and stock sales, which increased our common stock and additional paid-in capital balances.

We ended the third quarter of this year with cash and investments of $38.5 million, which is an increase this year of $20 million, and we had long-term debt of only $229,000. The antimony industry has had its opportunities and challenges over the past year, which makes the financials a little more complicated. However, we cut through the noise, and we really remain focused on generating positive cash flow.

We're also focused on creating a solid foundation for the future of our company. To accomplish this, we strengthened our ore supply by securing a three-year supply agreement with a new supplier of antimony ore and by expanding our capabilities in becoming a fully vertically integrated business with the ability to mine, process and sell antimony products. We also strengthened the sales side of our business by securing a five-year sole-source sales contract with the DLA and another recently announced five-year sales contract with a commercial customer. In addition, we had seven acquisitions of mining claims over the past 12 months with the expectation of several critical minerals being generated from these mining claims.

We will continue to be focused on being the preferred provider of critical minerals, which will provide growth, diversification and sustainability for our company.

I'll pass it back over to you, Gary.

Thanks, Rick. And I'd like to now turn the next section of today's conference call over to Joe Bardswich. Joe is our Chief Mining Engineer. He's also a Director and Executive Vice President of the company. He's going to provide everyone update on all of our mining operations located in Montana, Alaska and Ontario, Canada. Joe?

Thank you, Gary. I will start with Stibnite Hill in Montana. Stibnite Hill has been mined from underground by many previous owners and then by U.S. Antimony from 1968 until 1983. In '83, the decision was made to shut the operation down and depend on Mexico with lower labor costs to provide stibnite feedstock for Madero smelter and for the supply of military spec antimony trisulfide for primers for ammunition. We believe that we remain as the only North American supplier of military spec antimony trisulfide as approved by the Defense Logistics Agency.

We assembled a great team of geologists, both employees and consultants throughout the company operations from Alaska to Montana to Ontario. One of them did the record search at Montana Tech and at the U.S. Forest Service and the field work on Stibnite Hill itself to provide sufficient evidence that enabled the start of a bulk sampling and exploration program to uncover and excavate the narrow and flat-lying vein of high-grade stibnite on the patented ELISA mining claim. With the cooperation of the Montana DEQ, we're able to modify our operating permit to include taking a bulk sample from the ELISA and immediately start extraction of that stibnite bulk sample.

There's an old adage in the mining industry that grade is king. We are blessed with good grade and geologists who are experiencing grade control at the face where the bucket meets the ore. The grade control is visual. Pure stibnite is about 71.4% antimony, and we endeavor to load only rock that contains economic quantities of stibnite. The ore is loaded directly into the typical tandem highway dump truck, 10-wheelers and haul down off the mountain to the yard of a local contractor where the material is reloaded on to standard highway semi tractor trailer, the 18-wheeler for haulage to a flotation mill in Montana. A more detailed description of our Stibnite Hill operation is available in the October 30 news release posted on our web page.

Production as of 8:00 a.m. this morning, we've loaded and trucked 35 loads of 16 tonnes each off of the mountain for a total of 560 tonnes. To get an average grade of the material truck, we have commissioned an independent geologic consultant recognized at the QP, a qualified person by the SEC under the new SK-1300 regulations, commission him to sample the crushed material, maintain custody of the samples on submitted for assay at a recognized professional assay firm. The samples have been submitted for assay and results will be reported when received.

Each 1% of antimony would mean 20 pounds of antimony per tonne, so 10% would be 200 pounds per tonne or 3,200 pounds of antimony per truckload. So these are expected to be valuable truckloads So these are expected to be valuable truckloads. I expect a grade better than 10%, but 10% would still total 112,000 pounds of contained antimony haul to date.

Significantly, we had planned a similar operation in Alaska. We applied for permits on April 14 of this year. However, we did not receive permit approval until mid-September, so barely got started before inclement weather hit us.

We were able to do some work on the Mohawk mine patent claims prior to the permit approval. Mohawk was a former gold producer from underground, which reported significant antimony in the wall rocks of the gold veins. Our initial work on Mohawk was site cleanup of the site. The locals had used the property of the disposal area for abandoned garbage and other garbage. This is followed by a trenching program that allowed us to map the old workings and identify areas of possible future antimony extraction.

After receipt of the Alaska permit, we got -- we barely got started on our original plan of trenching beneath antimony in the soil anomalies.

Antimony is one of the pathfinder minerals used in gold exploration. The data for the antimony soil anomalies were derived from previous gold exploration work by major companies, Placer Dome, Inco, Silverado, et cetera, following the discovery of the Fort Knox 10 million ounce gold deposit that's presently being mined by Kinross.

Other activity in Alaska included the use of an exploration contractor at the remote Stibnite Creek property. Work included mapping and sampling, but the major expenditure was in the cleanup of the mess left by former claim owners who attempted to construct a mill on site. Access to this site was by helicopter, although winter roads have been used by past operators. Presently, our sense that this deposit can be further developed and mined with underground access provided by an adit and drift along the vein into the mountain side.

In the community of Fox, very near to our option exploration properties, we purchased a 17-acre site to be used as an HQ location. There are three homes on the property plus a larger storage type building. We constructed a large reinforced concrete pad on the site just before winter weather hit so that we'll be ready in the spring for staging of stibnite from our trenching operations, sorting and bagging for transportation to Montana or Mexico from milling and/or smelting. We've had preliminary discussions with local prospectors and placer miners regarding purchase of their production.

In Ontario, first, the Iron Mask cobalt property northwest of Sudbury. Field work at the property was completed in late October, outcrop stripping and cleaning of the rock exposures along with geological mapping to provide a clear indication of the property's geology, which was not properly evaluated in any previous exploration by other parties. There are delays in receiving assay results, which hampers our progress. 20 grab and channel samples were submitted to ALS Globex in October, and results are also a waited for an earlier batch of 25 samples.

Cobalt mineralization has encountered thus far only in the Iron Mask ultramafic intrusion. Previous works by others yielded a range of cobalt values from 2.1% to 6.5%. Ontario government records show values of 16.4% cobalt and 8.8% nickel across 4 feet in a drill core.

Mafic, ultramafic and anorthositic layered complex was initially recognized at the Iron Mask outcrop and traced for a minimum 60-foot strike length southwest to the copper zone. This zone has a potential for copper, nickel, cobalt and platinum group mineralization, which were all on the 2025 critical minerals list. Permits for mechanical stripping are in place for the Iron Mask.

At the Fostung, the tungsten deposit, detailed investigation of the main mineralized zone commenced in October. Work here involves hand stripping and cleaning of numerous outcrops followed by selective channel cuts in a transact of more than 100 feet. The cuts were necessary to observe scheelite and other minerals such as [ UV light ] with ultraviolet light unencumbered by fluorescent organic matter that would occur on the weathered outcrop.

The channel cut material, which revealed numerous intervals of garnet-rich skarn and associated scheelite mineralization was recently submitted to ALS Globex for analysis. Further slabs were cut from seven samples that will be submitted for electron microprobe analysis. Stripping of additional old crop south of the road is being undertaken and will soon be supplemented by mechanical stripping. We just got the permit for the mechanical stripping this past week.

It is suspected that the mineralized zone could extend 600 meters west of the road and connect with the discovery showing. The ministry has recently issued a permit for mechanical stripping of this area. Metallurgical test work, testing gravimetric separation was completed at Lakefield Research and analysis of heavy liquid separation was conducted by Sepro in Vancouver. Lakefield has been asked to submit a proposal utilizing cross flotation as the next step in metallurgical testing.

SRK Consulting Group out of their Toronto office has previously calculated an inferred resource of the tungsten deposit at the Fostung. We've commissioned SRK to do a new report that includes the additional drilling completed by former owners. This report, which will be done to the new SEC SK-1300 standards is scheduled to be completed by mid-January.

The company is fortunate to have engaged a high-quality group of geologists, employees and consultants with many contacts in the mining industry. We are continuing to seek out critical minerals opportunities and to identify properties, which we believe are available at low acquisition costs and which have potential to be enhanced by basic exploration methods and which we believe can be brought into production quickly at a low CapEx. The availability of in-house hydrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical expertise and operating experience provides a next step capability in assessing opportunities.

I'll turn it back to you, Gary.

Thanks, Joe. And let me make a couple of comments to make sure our listeners understand the magnitude of what Joe is saying. I'll talk about -- I want to talk about the two prospects up in Canada that we are involved in being the cobalt and tungsten.

There is no cobalt or tungsten currently being mined in the United States or Canada, nobody. Just like no antimony is being mined in the United States and Canada until we started it about 40 days ago. So we have a contract with the government. We have a contract with industrial customers to sell our antimony. We want to do the exact same thing with tungsten and cobalt.

As Joe mentioned, the work that he's done since we acquired the tungsten property about five to six months ago has been significant and to the point where we can now get a reserve report. With that reserve report, we can get federal government funding, we believe, and we know what we have to do on the downstream side to make that product salable.

We hope to duplicate what we've done in antimony and continue to do in antimony with the critical minerals of tungsten and cobalt. We have other irons in the fire related to these two critical minerals and excited about it. And so we don't want to be just a one-trick pony antimony only, even though that is our primary business. We think that we can duplicate what we've done in these other 2 critical minerals, and those discussions continue with the U.S. government.

So I'm going to now introduce another gentleman by the name of Aaron Tenesch. You've never heard from Aaron before on these conference calls. Aaron has been secretly hiding out in Montana. He is our Vice President of the Antimony division, has been one of the -- been with the company since July of last year. Aaron is one of our chemists. And I promise he will not get into the mineralogical characteristics of antimony today, which I'm quite sure he would love to do. Aaron is in charge of all of our third-party antimony procurements from various countries around the world.

He's going to give you an overview of where we currently stand on all these efforts and the inventory that we have built and are continuing to build every week. And it's quite immense, and it's been a huge project for Aaron and something that I think he's done an exceptional job in. You have to understand when he's talking to all these various countries and these producers and these traders and these brokers around the world, he has to weed through all the c***, and there's a lot of it out there. And it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of effort, and it takes a lot of work to wind down to find the antimony necessary for us to make the products that we have to make for our various customers.

And so Aaron, why don't you tell everybody what you've been up to?

Thank you, Gary. You're correct. I missed the lab from time to time. But on our supply, throughout 2025, USAC has developed and executed over 15 separate supply contracts for materials sourced from 10 different countries around the world. There are over 30 other parties engaged in contract development and negotiation at this time. Primary supplies for ore, concentrate and metal are being developed in North America, Australia, Africa, South America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia to diversify supply and support capacities with favorable economics.

This year, our smelter in Mexico has received approximately 330 tons of antimony feedstock. Supplies and deliveries continue to ramp up with roughly 20 tonnes of concentrates presently clearing Mexican ports and approximately 275 tonnes currently on the water or being loaded for shipping in overseas ports.

We are most excited about our developments in Bolivia and Chad. Bolivia is a well-established antimony producer with extensive history and mining experience. Our operating partner and existing associated supply agreement should result in the delivery of approximately 150 tonnes per month of antimony metal, beginning in the next few months. This metal stream will go directly to the smelter in Thompson Falls to support our proprietary antimony trioxide production. Monthly delivery of this volume should commence in the first quarter of 2026.

USAC is very interested in the developing mining sector in Chad. The PND conference in Abu Dhabi demonstrates Chad's intent to diversify into the mining sector to attract foreign capital beyond traditional markets such as oil. USAC's strategic engagement is well timed, allowing synergistic development of the mining sector in Chad that may lead to opportunities in and beyond antimony.

To take full advantage of this environment, USAC has engaged a gentleman as our African Critical Mineral Director. Our consultant has dual citizenship in Chad and the U.S. and will provide a regional foothold for immediate outreach and intelligence gathering on Chad's evolving mining sector. It is important to note that we can fulfill our contract commitments with the $245 million DLA award with products produced from either Mandalay feedstocks in Mexico or traditional feedstocks in Thompson Falls, Montana. These supply developments position USAC to continue with growth and facility expansion initiatives that will ultimately support domestic demand and domestic production as it becomes available.

Thank you. And back to you, Gary.

Thank you, Aaron, for that very good overview. Just I'd like to put things in perspective because when we hear all these numbers out there that we're throwing around volumes and tonnage and all, when you look at our 10-Q that we filed this afternoon and as Rick mentioned on the call, we're continuing to build inventory. And that inventory is necessary for us to meet the contractual commitments we have with our long-term customers, the new contracts we've discussed today.

And so just to put it in perspective, today, if you look at our financials from September 30 all the way to January this year, you'll see we've been averaging about 100 tonnes a month of production of finished product coming out of Thompson Falls. That is going to change dramatically, already began changing in the month of October, as Rick gave you some new numbers. That's what gives us the comfort to meet our revenue projections that we talked about in the press release today.

But what's really going to change is 2026. 2026 will be a banner year for this company. We will not only have the expansion of Thompson Falls completed and hopefully January, we're on target. We're 65% complete with that expansion effort and everything is going as planned. But Madero, all these new supplies that Aaron mentioned that are coming into Madero, we're sorting through, we're starting to refine and we're having finished product. And we have consistent new shipments coming in each month of 2026.

So you combine that international procurement with what Joe has found up in Montana. And we haven't produced anything yet out of Alaska, and we know that's going to change beginning in the spring of next year. Then all of a sudden, you start seeing a significant supply of antimony coming into this little company that's going to have some phenomenal results because you can't help it. But when you go from 100 to 500 to 600 tonnes a month, which we will have the capacity of doing, it will have a dramatic change in this company's future and financials.

So I just feel like it's important for people, you get lost in the numbers to understand what we're doing today and where we're going. So I'd like to now introduce to you our Vice President of Investor Relations. You've heard from him before. His name is Jonathan Miller. He's going to update everyone on our IR and marketing activities achieved during this quarter and what our plans for the fourth quarter are.

Jonathan, do you want to take over?

Great. Thank you, Gary, and good afternoon, everyone. The third quarter was one of the most dramatic re-ratings in our company's history. From July through September, our share price climbed from about $3.08 to $6.20, up more than 100% and now trading at $7.62 per share, making it the best performing quarter in our history. Average daily trading volume nearly tripled, a clear sign that institutional investors are paying attention and that the seeds we planted over the past year are starting to take root.

Since the start of 2025, our market cap has expanded almost fourfold, rising from around $200 million to more than $1 billion. Our Russell 2000 inclusion at the end of the second quarter gave us another tailwind, broadening our exposure to ETFs and institutional funds and firmly establishing U.S. Antimony within the national security and small-cap growth space. And our recent listing on the NYSE Texas Exchange is another step forward. It gives us greater visibility, stronger liquidity and puts U.S. Antimony squarely in the spotlight of a growing market that's deeply aligned with America's energy, defense and industrial base.

Now none of this happened by chance. It's all the result of a focused data-driven investor relations strategy we built internally and executed with precision. Over the quarter, Gary and I have met with more than 100 institutional investors through conferences, non-deal roadshows and direct outreach. Institutional ownership has gone from almost zero just 1.5 years ago to about 30% today. one of the fastest transformations among our peers.

We also strengthened our research coverage with a new house, William Blair, with a $20 target price and maintained continued support from our existing research analysts being AGP, H.C. Wainwright and B. Riley, all have reaffirmed confidence in our growth story.

On the media front, we continued the groundwork we laid, maintaining strong momentum with Reuters, Bloomberg and Fox Business, and most recently The Wall Street Journal, securing national TV and print coverage that highlighted U.S. antimony as North America's only operating smelters and the sole vertically integrated antimony supplier outside of China and Russia.

We also leaned into shifting global dynamics to frame our story around supply chain security. Recent reports out of China suggests that the country continues to restrict defense-grade antimony, underscoring why domestic supply is critical. That, together with Executive Order 14017 under the Defense Production Act, which requires suppliers to the U.S. government to obtain their antimony supplies from U.S. sources, further reinforces the role U.S. antimony plays in America's mineral independence.

And while not a direct IR initiative, our $245 million award from the Defense Logistics Agency speaks volumes about this new management team's ability to execute. It tells investors and the market that U.S. antimony has moved from potential to performance, from promise to proof, earning validation at the highest levels of national defense.

Internally, we've been modernizing how we communicate. We've started the process of building a new corporate and Investor Relations website that reflects who we are today. Our multichannel communications approach has strengthened transparency with both institutional and retail shareholders. We've also recognized X, formerly Twitter, as a formal SEC recognized disclosure outlet, letting us address breaking news and correct misconceptions in real time, so all investors have equal access to accurate information.

In September, we took another big step with an ambitious investor media campaign. Our film crew followed our geologists across the Alaskan frontier, capturing the rediscovery of historic antimony reserves and later filmed our Thompson Falls expansion groundbreaking ceremony, offering the first real inside look at America's only antimony smelter. The upcoming operational docu series titled America's Final Supply Chain features experts in geology, academia and defense, telling a story that's bigger than just U.S. antimony. It's about America's industrial revival, our capacity to produce defend and lead again. You will soon see the story displayed in various media outlets.

As we close out the year, we'll be on the road presenting at several more investor events, including the IDEAS Investor Conference in Irving, Texas next week on November 19 and 20, the NYSE Growth Equity Symposium in New York on December 1 and the B. Riley Convergence Conference on December 4, also in New York. Each of these will further expand our institutional reach and give us more opportunities to bring our story to new audiences.

Altogether, these efforts from narrative positioning and outreach to media engagement and capital markets access, drove the significant share price gain as well as the broader recognition we're now earning across defense, mining and investment circles.

By the end of the quarter, sentiment around U.S. antimony had completely transformed from a quiet microcap stock into an internationally recognized critical minerals growth story aligned with America's defense, industrial and technology priorities. It was one of our most value-creating quarters in our history. Looking ahead, our focus is on deepening institutional relationships, broadening our reach into the European, Canadian and Australian markets and sustaining the momentum that's positioned U.S. Antimony as the definitive American story in critical minerals.

Back to you, Gary.

Thanks, Jonathan. To round up our discussion today before we go into our Q&A, I've broken down my remaining presentation into five different parts that I think the listening audience would be interested in hearing about. The first is long-term sales agreements. The second is our competitive landscape. The third is our mining our own antimony properties. The fourth is Larvotto resources in Australia. And the fifth is China, which is the 10,000-pound gorilla.

So, as announced over the last 45 days, actually last 90 days, your company has completed two significant sales contracts that totaled $352 million. To put that in perspective, this company reported $15 million of revenues last year. So that's one heck of a big boost. The first contract, as you know, is with the Defense Logistics Agency, the DLA, and that's up to $245 million. And we announced a new one just yesterday with an industrial customer for approximately $107 million. So these two most difficult parts of any successful business have now been accomplished. Source material, as outlined by both Aaron and Joe here today and sales contracts of significant proportions after we complete the processing that have terms as far out as five years for delivery.

We look at the competitive landscape in the antimony business, we don't see any other antimony company, either domestic or foreign, is competition today. We have the only two operating smelters in North America. The time, the cost, the permitting and industry knowledge prohibits our competition from being true viable competitors for at least three years, most likely four years.

I would encourage all investors, whether on this call or looking at the antimony industry to peel back the onion and do your homework. There are so -- there's some tremendous promoters out there who have done a wonderful job of salesmanship. For that, I give them 100% credit. But we are, and I repeat, the only vertically integrated antimony company outside of China and Russia. There simply is no one else. Those that profess to want to be, all I can say is good luck, and you better put your big boy pants on because you've got a long row to hoe. So I'm not going to name names of competitors. It's comical when I listen to them on TV or in newspaper articles, do your homework, look at the quality of the material, look at how they're going to get the material on the ground, look at how they're going to process it, look at who they're going to sell it to. So it's just -- it's comical. And so as an investor, do your homework if you're going to look at this industry.

I cannot emphasize enough how important and meaningful our recent mining success achieved in Montana that was outlined by Joe Barge with today. And I give Joe complete credit for this. This is the future of our company. The timing of these outstanding mining results that he's achieved just in 40 days is completely aligned with our smelter expansion efforts in Montana, which are contemplated to be completed in January, just two months from now.

U.S. Antimony's gross margins grow to over 60%, utilizing our own material versus that acquired from third parties, which we're doing obviously through all the work that Aaron has outlined. When our Alaskan operations restart in April, May of next year with the spring thaw, we anticipate further increasing our own supply of antimony ore material for our two smelters in Montana and in Mexico.

Let's talk about Larvotto. We announced on October 19 that we submitted an indicative proposal to acquire 100% of Larvotto Resources Limited located in Australia. Our proposal was subsequently rejected by the Board of Directors of Larvotto just one week later. We continue to own 10% of Larvotto's outstanding shares, which makes us their largest shareholder, and that investment is worth approximately $40 million of value today. Our Board and financial advisers have yet to determine what, if any, further action we may take concerning this previously proposed transaction. I'm sure we will be making some decisions over the next 60 days.

China. China is the big gorilla. I always like to say the 10,000-pound gorilla. We continue to see and hear mixed signals coming out of China as well as our current U.S. administration. First of all, we are not involved in rare earths. We're only involved in critical minerals. Too many investors lump these two types of minerals together. That is a huge mistake.

So, in military applications, antimony is diverse and far-reaching. Antimony allows antimony alloys play a significant role in making ammunition production that extremely difficult to replace. Hard lead alloys enriched with antimony significantly increase the hardness and dimensional stability of projects, as I mentioned earlier.

So let's talk about, go back to China. China's position in the antimony market is huge. It stands out from the competition. China possesses a production capacity that dwarfs all other countries combined. Global antimony production was estimated around 100,000 tons last year in 2024. China alone produces 60x that much, 60x.

The second point is equally critical for Western Strategy. China also dominates the downstream value chain. It's not just the mines that China controls, but also the smelter, the refining and processing, which is what we do. Approximately 85% to 90% of global antimony refining capacity is today in China's hands. This means that even antimony ores mined in other countries often have to be transported to China for processing, but you get nothing back. China will not release any finished products back. So this is a form of structural dependency that gives the country immense power of not only the United States, but the rest of the world.

So the United States finds itself in a position that could be described as strategically embarrassing as the world's leading military power with technology advanced global active defense industry, this power depends on material the U.S. does not control. The last commercial antimony mine in America closed decades ago until we opened up the only mine producing antimony today in Montana.

Dependence of is not new, but it has become acute. Historically, stockpiles were sufficient because trade functioned smoothly and China was willing to export antimony. But now with China's export controls, the system has completely collapsed. The U.S. strategic reserves totaling only about 1,100 tonnes are enough to cover demand for just a few weeks or at most a few months. This is not just insufficient. It's observed it's completely observed for a superpower in a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

So we feel like what we've accomplished in such a short period of time is truly significant. All of our employees are working hard to meet the demands of our country. And we're not only bringing this antimony in from other countries, but we're going to be able to do it right here on our own home turf. And so we're extremely excited about where we sit today, what our future lies. And we welcome the investors that are on this call today.

And operator, we'd like to now take a few questions.

[Operator Instructions] We did have a few questions coming in from the webcast. The first question, we have a five-year contract with a fabric manufacturer for antimony trioxide for $106 million and a $245 million contract with U.S. Defense Agency. What is the difference between the two types of antimony?

There are definitely differences, and I'm going to let Joe and/or Aaron, you guys are better suited to answer that question than me.

Go ahead, Aaron.

Well, I think that one is pretty simple. The DLA contract is for metallic antimony in ingot form. And the commercial supply contract is for antimony trioxide, which is essentially a white powder in a bagged form.

And taking that a step further, the requirements of what we have to do for the DLA are very specific. We make a antimony metal. It's an ingot. It weighs about 5 pounds. We have to stamp it with a serial number. It's stacked on a pallet, shrink wrapped and shipped to the DLA. When we announced that contract, I don't know, 60, 90 days ago, we also immediately got an order for $10 million that we're in the process of filling, and we're anticipating another order of $50 million in short order. So $60 million coming out of the $245 million over the next probably six to eight months.

Okay. The next question, is management considering building an additional smelter or processing facility? And if so, what would drive that decision on the location?

Okay. Great question, something I think about all the time. The addition of the smelting capacity we're doing in Thompson Falls, we are done. Whatever we complete in January is the most we can do on that footprint. It's got to do with the amount of land we own and the location of the facility up between two Mountain Ranges and surrounded by U.S. Forest Service. So no more can be done there. We do have some other things going on in Montana we'll be announcing soon that will allow us to do some other expansion efforts, but not likely a smelter.

Now Mexico is a different story. We have a large land position down there. We have a capacity to do about 200 tonnes a month. Once Aaron is able to get that going smoothly and full, we will then entertain expanding that facility. That's the easiest place. There's no problem hiring employees. We have lots of natural gas tied to a Pemex pipeline that we help build. And it's in an area where we're being left alone out in the middle of kind of a desert. So that is the area from, I think, my perspective and the management's perspective would be the most logical.

Now we have looked seriously in Alaska. And the problem with Alaska is that there's no natural gas. Believe it or not, being a state with such fossil fuels, everything is up in the Arctic -- North Arctic circle and not available in Fairbanks or anchorage. There's been other companies talking about building a facility at Point MacKenzie. Good luck. You have to use LNG, you'd be paying 6x to 7x of the price of Mcf of natural gas from a pipeline. So we don't see that as economically viable. So if there was natural gas, I think we'd be all over Alaska, but that is not the case. You got to have natural gas for smelters in our opinion.

So we do have some other ideas that I'm not at liberty to talk about some new technology that Aaron is working on. And this Bolivian group that we have actually invested in and are receiving material from here in early January has some new technology that we hope to further review. We think that, that could be advantageous.

So, answer your question is, I think if there's any growth in 2026, it will most likely be at Madero in Mexico.

Okay. The next question, congratulations on a successful quarter. My question is, what is the expected production volume ramp for Montana and Mexico?

Gosh, Aaron, that would be a good one for you, but I'm not going to let you answer it. So it's like throwing darts at the wall, okay? We've outlined today all the new material we've received and are continuing to receive. Part of the problem in predicting output of these facilities is that this material that we're getting from all these countries, there's problems at a port. There's problems on the ocean. As we said earlier this year, we had material held by the Chinese customs for over six months. There's material that has high arsenic, the material has high lead, material has high sulfur. So we're always dealing with these various mechanics.

So I feel comfortable in saying that in 2026, we will see a ramp-up. You already saw it in the numbers that Rick mentioned today for the month of October. I mean, October almost beat the whole quarter of the third quarter. So you're seeing that happen, and I think you'll continue to see it happen. It's going to be bumpy. I don't think it's going to be a straight line. But I hope and pray that by the end of 2026, we'll be at 500-plus tons a month. That's where I really hope we get to. And if we can get our own material coming out of Alaska, the certainty of that goes up significantly.

Okay. The next question, with the expanded processing facility and new furnaces coming to Montana, can you quantify efficiencies expected or detailed technological improvements in processing?

I'm going to answer the first part of that, and then I'm going to let maybe Aaron or Joe jump in.

One of the issues that we've had, I think I've mentioned this before, in prior calls in Montana was people. It's a small community, about 10,000 people in a 35-mile radius of Thompson Falls. And unfortunately, 75% of them are retired and don't want to work in a smelter. So we made a decision about 60 days ago that we need to find housing. The problem is we find people, but they got no place to live. So we actually have contracted, we haven't closed yet a little housing development that would house 25 people. that's at the bottom of the mountain in Thompson Falls.

So we think we have solved that problem. And I know from talking to the two key managers in Thompson Falls, just we had a conference call on Monday that they have been continuing to hire people, and we've been able to find new employees and getting them trained. So we're already in the mode of hiring people to get ready for the additional expansion in Thompson Falls.

So, as far as efficiency, Aaron, you'd probably be better able to answer that question than me.

I can answer that question to some extent, but it's sort of a two-tiered situation. So in a mechanical sense, there is some increase in efficiency in this expansion and that there's a little bit a little bit larger equipment, some increases in automation and sort of the ease and equipment efficiency with new technologies or improved technologies such as modern bag houses and other things of that type that should see some general efficiencies.

But it's also important to consider the type of feed material. And we are basing our own metrics on traditional feed materials, but our efficiency and capacities increase even more than Gary is going to let me say anything about if we get the right kind of feed into that plant.

And so it's, again, sort of a two-tiered approach where we do have some mechanical efficiencies, but then the feedstock can also have a very beneficial effect.

Okay. And the next question, how close are current smelting operations to running at full capacity? And what are the bottlenecks, if any, to reaching 100% throughput?

Montana is running pretty much at capacity. But as Aaron mentioned, there are some efficiencies that the team up there are getting, which will allow to probably -- well, you saw in the month of October, we were able to increase throughput.

The only -- the issues at Madero have been quality of material. We continue to deal with some inferior quality material, but we've gotten some new material from, I think, Peru and even in Mexico that seems to be of better quality. So that's what we're trying to get to. We're trying to get to a consistent supply of quality material from producers of antimony that allows you to run more efficiently. You can imagine when you have this number of different products of raw antimony coming from these different countries, it's hard to be super efficient when you're having to check the quality of each material that goes into these furnaces.

So having consistent material, and that's what I think Aaron was really alluding to with respect to Bolivia and Chad, we're excited about the quality of the material we're seeing coming out of those countries.

Okay. The next question, you spent $9.2 million on expanding capacity at your smelting ops. Any required spend in the current queue? Or maybe some color even on what you've spent thus far, given we're halfway through the period?

I would imagine we're probably $12 million, $13 million, Rick may be able to jump in here. But the total CapEx is around $22 million. So that will likely get spent all by the end of the year.

Yes. No, it's probably about $23 million and probably at least $10 million additional from the $9 million we're already at will get spent in the fourth quarter.

Okay. The next question, are you able to provide any color on the targeted mix of internally sourced ore versus third-party purchases and how that might evolve in the coming quarters?

Well, the target mix is 100% but I doubt if we'll be there in the near future. I think we'll gradually continue to increase company-owned ore -- so it just depends on -- our biggest issue, quite frankly, is weather. Our mine in Montana is obviously up in the top of the mountain. They have to deal with snow and cold. The activities in Alaska are completely shut down for winter and won't start up again until April, May of next year.

So, our goal in 2026, if we find the kind of antimony we hope to find in Alaska is we bought a piece of property in town, closed on it, laid a cement pad before winter kicked in, and that will be a staging area where we'll be taking that antimony found in Alaska, and we'll sort it probably low, medium and high grade, and we'll probably even do some rock crushing there and then load that material into Supramax to ship it to Montana.

So we're getting prepared for a very active summer. I know that our geologists up in Alaska are working on getting additional permits filed. So we have no delays there and can really hit the ground running when they can due to thaw out of weather.

Okay. The next question, you recently updated 2026 revenue guidance to $125 million. Does this include revenues from the new trioxide contract?

No.

Okay. And the next question, any more government support in the pipeline or grant additional potential contracts?

Yes.

Okay. And this does conclude. We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session, and I will now turn the call over to Gary C. Evans for closing remarks.

Okay. Hopefully, our call today was informative for everybody. We try to give you some much more detail than what's obviously in the press release or the 10-Q.

We -- none of us at the company could be more excited about our future, and we look forward to telling you what all we're doing. Everybody is working hard. The loss we had in the quarter all related to cash compensation -- I mean, stock compensation, not cash. It's very important. I mean I think you want your management and your Board with stock, not cash. And so that should be a very good positive that all this hard work we're doing, we're aligned with you as a shareholder. We want to participate in the future growth of this company and the stock performance that we hope to be able to provide. And we're taking that compensation in equity rather than compensation.

We're trying to preserve our goal is to be the lowest cost producer of antimony in the world, bar none. And with everything we're doing in this sector, I'm highly confident that we'll be able to accomplish that goal. That ensures our viability in the future. We are in a market that has obviously variant in prices. And if we can control our destiny by being our own antimony miner, then that gives us longevity and certainty. So that's where we're headed. Thank you, operator.

Thank you. This does conclude today's webcast, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Greetings, and welcome to the United States Antimony Corporation Second Quarter 2025 Financial and Operating Results Meeting. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference call and webcast is being recorded.

I will now turn the call over to your host, Gary C. Evans, Chairman and CEO. You may begin.

Thank you, Jenny, and thank you to our listeners for dialing in this afternoon.

First, I'd like to start by introducing other members of our management team that have joined me today on this call. We have Joe Bardswich, who's a Board member and Executive Vice President and our Chief Mining Engineer; we have Rick Isaak, who is our Senior Vice President as well as our Chief Financial Officer; we have Melissa Pagen, who is Senior Vice President of our Corporate Development and Government Relations; and then Jonathan Miller, who's our Vice President of Investor Relations.

I would like to -- I don't want to steal Rick's thunder regarding the financials, but I'd like to say a few things. In summary, for the 6 months that we just reported a few minutes ago that ended June 30, 2025, our revenues were up 160%, this is year-over-year. Our gross profit was up 183%, which is year-over-year, and we reported net income of $728,000, which was up 707% year-over-year. Our revenues reported today for the first 6 months of this year were almost $3 million greater than we reported for the entire 2024 fiscal year. We continue to remain on track for our previous revenue guidance of $40 million to $50 million for fiscal 2025.

Now to give everyone a lot more details regarding our operating and financial results reported this afternoon, Rick Isaak, our CFO, will take it from here. Rick?

Thanks, Gary. I'll start with some comments on our consolidated results. As Gary highlighted a few of them. Sales were $17.5 million for the first 6 months of this year, which is an increase of $10.8 million or 160% over last year, as Gary mentioned. Of this increase, our Antimony business was up $10.4 million or 203% over the prior year on continued strong demand for antimony, which increased our average sales price from about $6 per pound during the first 6 months of last year to about $22 per pound this year.

Our Zeolite business was up this year by $400,000 or 24% over last year. About 60% of this increase was due to higher volume and 40% was due to a higher price. Consolidated gross profit was $5.2 million for the first 6 months of this year, which is an increase of $3.4 million or 183% over last year. This increase was primarily due to the higher average sales price this year in both our Antimony and Zeolite businesses that I mentioned earlier and the lower maintenance and related costs incurred this year by our Zeolite business. These improvements in gross profit were offset in part by an increase in the percentage of the market price charged by our antimony suppliers.

I want to recognize the progress that our Zeolite business has made in this area and in general. They had some turbulent times last year with a lot of equipment, vehicle and facility maintenance, but they landed the plane well. As a result, our Zeolite business has been delivering to their customers on time and in full this year and has capacity to grow. We hired 2 salespeople this year for Zeolite business, and their focus is on fulfilling this unused capacity, and check that filling this unused capacity. Consolidated operating costs increased from $2.3 million for the first 6 months of last year to $4.8 million this year, which was primarily due to increased costs associated with personnel hired this year to lead our initiatives that are improving our company and increasing sales.

As a result of these improvements, we reported income from operations of $378,000 in the first half of this year as compared to a reported loss from operations of $414,000 last year. This is an improvement of $792,000 year-over-year. Included in this year's reported results were non-cash expenses totaling $1.6 million compared to only $500,000 last year. These non-cash items include stock compensation, depreciation and lease expenses.

Next, I'll review a few items in our balance sheet. First, we purchased $10 million of U.S. Treasury STRIPS during the second quarter of 2025, which obviously decreased our cash balance during the second quarter. Next, inventory increased by $5.6 million over the first 6 months of 2025, which was due to a significant increase in our antimony inventory. Our antimony ore supplier for our Thompson Falls, Montana facility delivered twice as much ore during the first half of this year compared to last year. And about 75% of this increase occurred in the second quarter when they delivered 3x the amount of ore over last year.

We expect our supplier will continue to deliver more antimony this year than last. Therefore, we recently increased our processing capacity and our staff to lower this inventory balance over the last half of 2025, which should increase our sales volume. These increased supplier shipments also increased our accounts payable balance over the first 6 months of 2025. Prepaid expenses increased by $1.2 million during the first 6 months of this year. About $840,000 of this increase related to prepaid antimony ore that should arrive at our Madero facility in Mexico in the third quarter of this year and will be processed and sold.

Fixed assets increased around $7 million during the first 6 months of this year, primarily due to purchase of mining claims, leases and property, the largest of which was the $5 million purchase of the tungsten property in Ontario, Canada. There have been exercises of pre-existing warrants and stock sales that totaled about $7.3 million during the first 6 months of this year, which increased our common stock and additional paid-in capital balances during that time.

We ended the first half of 2025 with long-term debt of only $262,000. Overall, we're executing our plan to improve the operational landscape and financial results of the company. This year, this included increasing our antimony ore suppliers, our antimony capacity and our antimony staff, which we expect to continue going forward as we expand our Thompson Falls antimony facility. We also grew our Zeolite business. We acquired mining claims, leases and properties that I mentioned earlier in Alaska, Montana and Canada to position the company for opportunities to expand and grow.

And we balanced all these operational initiatives and improvements while increasing net income from a loss of $120,000 for the first 6 months of last year to income of $728,000 for the first 6 months of this year. We want to thank our shareholders for voting to pass our proposals at our recent annual meeting and for showing confidence in us and our strategy. We are a team dedicated to improving our company and increasing shareholder value.

I'll pass it back over to you, Gary.

Thank you, Rick. Now I'd like to turn today's conference call over to Joe Bardswich, our Chief Mining Engineer, who will provide everyone an update on all of our mining operations located in Montana, Alaska and Ontario, Canada. Joe?

Thank you, Gary. Starting with Alaska. We're very much behind schedule. We submitted permits in early May to the Department of Natural Resources, the DNR. The DNR requested input from the public in accordance with their regulations, and the department continues to assess and provide answers to the comments from the public. We're very disappointed with the progress being made, and we made the decision to acquire a very prospective block of private land so that we could proceed with our exploration and work program without having to be on either federal or state land.

Alaska placer miners have been operating in the Fairbanks area for the last 125 years. They've recovered large boulders of stibnite. They've placed them aside and continued on with their gold placer operations. Nobody is ever worried about the stibnite for 125 years. Our plans are to recover that stibnite and ship it to facilities in Montana. Suddenly, environmental groups have emerged expressing concern about inherent dangers from the -- of moving the stibnite boulders, and that has been preoccupying the DNR administrators.

We have made progress in areas not requiring permits. At Stibnite Creek, a program of geological mapping, sampling and cleaning up of historic workings was conducted by a contract geological firm and reinforcing our view that there is a mineable stibnite in that area. At the private property Mohawk mine, our initial effort was to clean up the junk that had accumulated over the years, including 7 burned out old cars. That work was accomplished. The site looks really good from a point of view of park-like setting, et cetera, rather than being a junkpile. Our geological crew has made considerable progress working on reconnaissance and cleaning out access trails.

We have contracted with a gravity survey contractor to conduct a gravity survey to help identify areas where the higher density massive stibnite is located, expecting that to speed up our operations and avoid areas that are bearing of the stibnite. We have a letter of intent to acquire a large block of land on the city's highway, planning that, that would provide a site for planned packaging facility with good access for trucks hauling from the Mohawk and other Ester Dome sites. So those would be the small general purpose construction trucks. And then the standard highway transport trucks, similar to trucks hauling to the Walmarts, et cetera, hauling our packaged Stibnite to Montana.

In Montana, we previously announced the purchase of the [ ELISA ] patented claim on Stibnite Hill behind our smelter and our intention to mine stibnite from surface using the special Montana provisions of small miners exemption statement or SMEZ. The SMEZ is limited to 5 acres of disturbance. The Montana DEQ have informed us that ELISA is still covered under our operating permit and that they would consider a permit application from USAC, incorporating the mining of the entire ELISA without the 5 acre -- the application of the, excuse me, the 5 acre limit. This application is being prepared. We're hopeful of shipping ore to our Montana mill in mid-September.

In Ontario, we have 2 projects, the Iron Mass Cobalt project, which includes nickel, copper, bismuth and precious metals. Our primary interest was in the high-grade cobalt that had been previously discovered there, but had not been delineated. A program of hand and mechanical stripping, washing the rock mapping and sampling continues. Our geologists have discovered 9 different rock types compared to the previously recognition of only 3 types as well as 3 types of settings for cobalt mineralization, and we have extended the area of the cobalt mineralization along strike.

Our relationship with the First Nations entity in this area are very good. We have arranged for a visit by the Whitefish Lake First Nation on August 20 to the site. At the Fostung deposit, we have entered into discussions with the Whitefish River First Nations who are almost immediately adjacent to that site. Their main concern is environmental protection and environmental remediation. Our discussions with them revealed that we're on the same page in terms of our objectives to mine in a proper manner and to incorporate a reclamation plan as part of our original mining plans.

Part of the permitting process for mining in Ontario includes a fourth season environmental survey. We've contacted a couple of firms in regards to doing this survey. We're awaiting proposals and pricing from them, which we anticipate in the next week, and we'll start that permitting process immediately. In the shorter-term, we're looking at the provisions of the Ontario Mining Act of being allowed a bulk sample of up to 50,000 tons. There are other operating mills in the area, in particular, the Strathcona mill, which is operated by a subsidiary of Glencore. Other people in the area have hauled bulk samples of 20,000 tons of nickel copper ore to Strathcona for contract milling. We anticipate that we'll be able to do the same thing, which would be a major step. A large mill like that means low milling costs and the professionalism of established mill like Falconbridge and now Glencore adds to the reliability of the process.

And that's it for me, Gary.

Thanks, Joe. I'd like to make just a couple of comments about what Joe elaborated on today. Back to Alaska for a second. We had anticipated having antimony ore brought to Thompson Falls this month. It's likely going to be next month. So we're about, I would say, a month behind schedule. And that's all due to the slowness of regulatory authorities. As Joe mentioned, we filed our permits back in May, and we actually had hoped to be ahead of time, and it's taken this long to get approvals. There is a group in Alaska that's opposed to any type of mining and the DNR is required to respond to their objections, and we're getting close to the end of that response period.

With respect to the Fostung property that Joe mentioned up in Canada, that is a tungsten property predominantly. That's why we acquired it. And it's important for our listeners to know that there are no active tungsten mines in the United States or in Canada today. So if we get this operation up and running, we will be the first to do so. And we're very bullish on tungsten going forward.

So I wanted just to make those 2 comments. As I mentioned -- as Joe mentioned back in Alaska, the reason we acquired a property, I was up there, I don't know, 1.5 months ago, that we found a property that had excellent antimony deposits on it, and we were able to actually acquire it and not have to deal with the DNR concerning a lease. And that gives us a lot of leeway with respect to how we manage and work that property. And that's what Joe was referring to in that we have people out there today. I've just read a couple of updates in the last few hours about all the activity we have going on there. And so that likely will be our first property from Alaska, where we bring material to Montana.

And again, we just bought it not even a month ago, and we're already to the point where we can actually begin doing some work, hopefully, in the next 30 days. So anyway, everything is progressing, I think, well. We are so encouraged about the Alaska material we're seeing on all the properties that Joe mentioned that we literally cannot wait to begin receiving that material in Montana. However, it's probably a good thing we haven't received it because as we mentioned earlier, our inventory in Montana is at record levels. And with the furnaces we've just refurbished over the last 30 to 45 days and the people we've hired, we can now take on more material over the next 30, 60, 90 days. And so as you also know, we're expanding that facility to significantly increase its throughput, and that will be completed by year-end.

So lots of things going on, very positive. And with that, I'd like to now introduce Melissa Pagen. She is our company's Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Government Relations. She's been our key officer dealing with the government work, which began last September, almost a year ago. So please note that we have to be very careful in our communications today regarding these matters, but we do feel comfortable in stating what Melissa is about to say. Melissa?

Great. Thanks, Gary. So as mentioned in previous updates, discussions with the Department of Defense for opportunities of potential collaboration are ongoing. We've been in discussions with both the Defense Logistics Agency or the DLA and the Defense Industrial Base Consortium or DIBC, regarding our antimony capabilities. But I should also note that we have had discussions with certain government contacts discussing our tungsten and cobalt assets as well. And as you know, these are also materials of great interest to our government and the supply chain.

But -- and going back to our antimony discussions, I do understand that there has been some buzz over the past week with unofficial commentary being made on social media platforms about the company's government discussions. But I do want to emphasize that no award has yet been officially made to USAC. And should any award officially be made, we will make all required announcements in compliance with both the government and with SEC requirements.

So while we can't provide further detail at this time, I would like to underscore the strategic position that this company holds. I know previous updates have had our team mentioning several times that U.S. Antimony is the only domestic processor and producer of antimony products. But I think there's a lot more to that story that starts with over 55 years of depth within that position. So that's decades of operational experience in a highly specialized field, and that experience cannot be replicated overnight.

So it's not a capability you reverse engineer from a textbook or a blueprint. This is a blend of science, operational nuance and real-world problem solving that's been developed over decades of fine-tuning. And as Gus, the Head of our Antimony division likes to say, there is a lot of art to this science. But USAC has not only built this technical foundation, it's proven resilience. It has weathered downturns, maintained core competencies through lean markets and emerged with stronger fundamentals, which means USAC has thrived when antimony was at $2.27 a pound in 2006 and $5.60 a pound in 2023, which is not luck, that's discipline, stewardship and a deep understanding of this material in the market and the long game.

So as you start to see and hear about antimony interest growing and attracting a lot of other people to the space who make really lofty claims to the media and the government about their new antimony plans, the distinction is clear that only one of us has truly had experience with this material. And if I may, Gary, I like to look at this like this. So if you want to have the best apple pie, you don't go to someone who just found a promising recipe, you go to mom. You go to the person who's made it 1,000 times under every condition and still delivers the best and consistent results.

So as you can imagine, this consistency and reliability in antimony processing and production is critical to domestic defense initiatives and the industrial supply chain. So unfortunately, I can't add any more details at this time. But Gary, thanks for the time.

Thank you, Melissa. You've made me hungry for apple pie, and now get back to work.

No problem.

Okay. I'd like to now introduce our Vice President of Investor Relations, Jonathan Miller. He's going to update everyone on our joint marketing efforts during this quarter and what we've been up to. So Jonathan?

Thank you, Gary, and good afternoon, everyone. The second quarter of 2025 was a continuation of what we initiated at the beginning of this year as it relates to our market awareness. We continue to proactively engage the investment community, significantly elevating our visibility on Wall Street.

Collaborating with a select group of investment bankers, we connected with over 120 institutional funds. These introductions have done -- what we've done is in order to plant seeds. Institutional ownership now represents an impressive 24% of our public float held by 121 distinct accounts. In prior years, we had virtually no institutional sponsorship.

We are particularly pleased to report notable improvements in our trading metrics. Over the quarter, our average daily volume increased substantially to an average of 4.8 million shares per day. While our volatility also increased, overall share price performance was positive. This quarter also saw a substantial increase in our market exposure through strategic media and event participation.

Our CEO, Gary Evans, has been prominently featured several times this year on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo, spotlighting our pivotal role in the domestic antimony production. Recent articles in both the Wall Street Journal and Reuters highlighted our international antimony procurements. Management presented at multiple high-profile industry conferences, including B. Riley Securities Investor Conference, Canaccord Genuity's Global Metals and Mining Conference and the Centurion One Global Capital LA Summit, alongside participating in key critical mineral webcasts and summits hosted by Maxim Group and Canaccord Genuity.

During the remainder of the year, we will be presenting at the H.C. Wainwright 27th Annual Global Investment Conference, September 8 through 10, 2025 in New York; the NIBA National Investment Banking Association Conference, September 16 through 17 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; the Centurion One Capital 3rd Annual Bahamas Summit, October 28 through 29; the Spartan Capital 2025 Investment Conference, November 3 in New York; and the IDEAS Investment Conference in Dallas, Texas, November 19 and 20.

We continue to expand our equity research coverage by sharing our story with new research analysts and collaborating closely with select bankers who facilitate introductions to new investors through targeted non-deal roadshows. We picked up one new equity research firm in May, Jesse Sobelson at D. Boral Capital, who now covers us. On July 1, 2025, United States Antimony officially dual listed on the NYSE Texas Stock Exchange.

Next Wednesday, August 20, we will attend the official launch event for the exchange, where we'll be networking with Texas state officials, business leaders and institutional investors. This milestone further aligns UAMY with regional and national stakeholders focused on critical mineral supply chains, energy security and American industrial leadership. These strategic engagements significantly enhance shareholder communication, fostering deeper understanding and support within the investment community.

Looking ahead, we've recently retained a public relations firm in Fairbanks, Alaska to actively support our community relations and local stakeholder engagement around our ever-increasing Alaskan mining operations. Additionally, in late August, we will launch an ambitious new marketing initiative designed to document our operations and highlight our strategic vision. This campaign will further embed antimony and critical minerals into broader public discourse, educating investors and bringing wider public attention to our vital role as America's final antimony supply chain.

These strategic achievements and our proactive IR initiatives have placed United States Antimony Corporation on a compelling growth trajectory. We're excited to continue sharing our story with you and remain grateful for your ongoing support.

I'll pass it back to Gary now.

Thank you, Jonathan. And as Jonathan noted, we've been what I call planting seed, so to speak, with many new institutional investors this year. This company was previously completely unknown by Wall Street, and I'm comfortable stating today that, that is no longer the case.

We have a long-term shareholder. This gentleman has been a shareholder for over 10 years. They brought something up to my attention recently that I would like to share with everyone today. While I'm not going to disclose his name, his initials are TH. And so this is what he said to me, and it really resonated. Back in the 1970s, when mining stocks were the rage, maybe 2% of them ever saw positive cash flow. U.S. Antimony not only has positive cash flow, but we also have net earnings. Start-ups in this industry typically have at least 5 years before they ever see any revenues. Our shareholders need to know how far ahead we are from the pack. There is simply no comparison.

So back in early May, when we reported our first quarter results, I gave you 6 catalysts that you as shareholders should look at and look forward to as we accomplish them in 2025. So I thought it would be good today to update you on these specific events as I address them last quarter. Number one was closing of a DoD award. My answer to that is stay tuned.

Number two, additional new international supplies of antimony to Madero in Mexico over and above what has already been announced. I would say, see our press release dated July 14, which was very detailed, and that was just not quite a month ago, where we outlined procurements from 7 locations, 5 of which are foreign. Let me update you on that release.

Bolivia. We have 10 metric tons that are being shipped in the month of August to our facilities. The country of Chad. The 80 tons has been shipped from Chad to Douala, Cameroon for export and is waiting customs documentation. This material will be going to the Madero smelter in Mexico.

Mexico, several small deliveries have been made to the Madero smelter and more extensive contracts have recently been executed. The first 50-ton shipment from one of these contracts is slated for delivery on August 29. At least grade of this material is expected to exceed 50% antimony.

And now I'd like to introduce a new country that we've just entered a contract with, and that's Peru. A test shipment of approximately 45 tons of flotation concentrate grading greater than 50% antimony has recently been contracted out of the country of Peru. This is our first shipment, and it will ship to our Madero smelter from Callao, Peru on or about August 21 to August 22.

Third item on my list last quarter was, is Alaska supply going to beginning in late summer. And as I've said earlier and as Joe mentioned, it's likely going to be September. We're probably about a month behind, and this is all due to permitting delays from the state of Alaska that are completely out of our control.

The fourth comment was completion of our expansion plans in Thompson Falls prior to year-end, which will provide a sixfold increase in our throughput of that facility. We are on schedule for year-end completion. We have a mechanical engineer there. We moved to Thompson Falls is in charge of this, same as Jeff Fink. He's, by the way, the fellow that fixed the facility up at BRZ in Preston, Idaho 1.5 years ago. And I'm actively involved in the procurements of the material. He sends me e-mails almost daily of what we have to buy, and that is moving on schedule.

The fifth item was additional acquisitions of mining claims, some likely in other critical minerals. Well, we announced an acquisition on June 27 of our tungsten property located up in Ontario, Canada. So that is a positive checkmark.

And then the sixth item that I mentioned was continued operating and financial result improvements to our financial statements. I said each quarter should be a stair-step increase of not only the prior year but the immediate prior quarter. I think that was successfully done today in our announcement, and we're continuing as evidenced in that press release. I have no doubt that we will continue to improve our financials and operating results throughout the year, and we have all the ingredients in place to accomplish that goal.

So with that being said, operator, I think we're now ready to take questions from our listening audience.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is, do you anticipate any domestic ore supply deals in the near future? And is that something you're looking at?

I'll respond to that. Domestic being the United States, there is no antimony being mined in the United States. We know of none that could come to fruition in the next 2 to 3 years. So the only antimony that will be mined in the United States that we believe is in the short-term is our mine in Montana, which as Joe mentioned, we're very close to bringing material to the smelter down the mountain at Thompson Falls as well as Alaska, which we anticipate having material in September. So answer to your question is no other antimony supplies other than our own.

Our next question is with reference to Alaska, has the leasehold acreage increased from the prior 23,800 acres since July? And any new updates on the findings?

Yes. I think we're closer to 30,000 acres, if I'm not mistaken, but somewhere between 23,000 and 30,000 acres. So as we mentioned, we did make an acquisition of a property that's actually the leasehold of the property where we own not only the mining rights, but the surface. And that was done just in the last 45 days, and that's where we're actively doing a lot of work today. And Joe, I don't know if you remember the amount of acreage associated with that, but I've been on the property. It's a very good-looking piece of property.

And as Joe mentioned, we had a bunch of old junk cars, and we're trying to be a good steward for the Alaskan people there, especially around Fairbanks. And so we paid the money to pick up all those cars and take them to a junkyard and clean up the property and make it something that people would be proud to look at. And so that property has had a lot of history of gold mining on it. And that's one thing I want to mention that I failed to mention earlier. I have no doubt in my mind that once we start mining antimony religiously in Alaska, we're going to find gold. I don't think there's any doubt about this.

Remember, all this antimony that we're in the process of mining came from gold miners that came there 150, 75 years ago. And so no doubt, we're going to see some gold deposits in relation to the work we're going to be doing. So hopefully, that answers your question.

Our next question is, I saw online that there was a fairly large contract from the Defense Logistics Agency that was up for bidding and due today. Can you maybe provide a bit of color on this contract and on what impact and potential you expect this to have on the company?

Well, that's the one contract that it was picked up by a number of social media sources. And that is a $240 million contract to acquire antimony. I think it notes that we're the only source because there's no other smelter. So once that contract solicitation ends, which I believe is today, then hopefully, some of the things that we're anticipating will come to fruition in the next few weeks. That's the plan.

Our next question is, it would be great to get an update on funding more broadly. Should we still consider UAMY as a potential recipient of government funding and/or offtake? Would you consider other funding avenues such as debt or equity if negotiations continue to drag out?

I don't think we would be spending the amount of time and effort with the government if we didn't anticipate funding in some form or fashion. In fact, as I noted earlier, the tungsten acquisition we made was due to discussions that we've had with the government. So I feel highly encouraged that we are forming a very good relationship with a number of different governmental officials that will allow our company to grow and meet the demands of our military in ways that nobody else can. As Melissa so well described it, there is no choice but us.

And there's no choice in 2 or 3, 4 or 5 years, but us. So I think we're in a very formidable position. We've been very careful to be sure that our negotiations are done in a manner that not only helps the government, but make sure that it protects our shareholders. And so those discussions will continue, and I feel confident that something positive will come out of all that.

The next question is, how receptive is the current administration be in trying to expedite USAC's plans on accelerating antimony or feedstock permitting? And who is slowing down the Alaskan permitting process? And can executive orders possibly streamline these processes?

Well, I don't think there's any doubt that our new administration is very pro critical minerals and rare earths. You've seen other companies get some funding. You've seen permitting get expedited. I think if we were dealing with federal permitting, we would get some help. Remember, our permits up in Alaska are state-funded or state permitting.

So we have been talking to dignitaries of that state, and we've met with some of the higher ups of the DNR and trying to expedite what is going on there. And to answer your question, who is the hold up? It's the local citizens that then there's a group called Save Our Domes that is basically an environmental group that doesn't want anything to happen anywhere.

And so I feel comfortable that we'll get everything we need as long as we do what we're supposed to do, and that's what our plan is. We're making improvements to the land not hurting it. So as Joe mentioned, I mean, this antimony that we're picking up has been thrown on the ground for the last 100 years by other miners, and we're picking it up and taking it away. And that should be a positive thing, not a negative thing.

So once we are educating the locals as to what we're doing, which we have been doing with PR and just kind of tell you a funny quick story, I was actually took my youngest daughter as a graduation president to Alaska fishing about a month ago. And we're on the western part of Alaska, where there's out in a really remote area and our fishing guide asked me, so what do you do? I said, "Well, I'm involved in the mining business." And he says, "Oh, you're not involved in antimony, are you?" Well, how do you know that? And he says, "Are you U.S. Antimony Corporation?" I go, how in the world, do you know that? He goes, "well, I was coming to work today and on the radio was talking about what you guys are doing in Alaska."

So I guess our PR work is taking root when a fishing guy in a remote area of Alaska knows what we're doing. So I think that it's a process of educating the public. We're having all kinds of meetings up there, trying to show people that this is a good thing and it's something that our country needs. I mean -- and so if you're patriotic at all, you understand the antimony is a necessary ingredient for military applications. So it's a process, and we're making good headway, I think. Next question.

Our next question is, can you comment on second Thompson Falls facility progress?

Second, Thompson Falls, I'm not sure I understand the question. If you're talking about the improvements at Thompson Falls, as I mentioned earlier, those are underway and still planned for year-end. We have no immediate plans for a third facility, which would be -- we have Thompson Falls, we have Madero. We are looking and discussing it. We want to get these 2 facilities up and running at full capacity first, but we have looked at other locations about a third facility, and we've been talking to the government about that. So that's probably a 2026, '27 event. Next question.

Our next question is, Gary, please comment on whether you have processed the antimony received via China from Mandalay, now Alkane. Also, the buzz is Mandalay quality is disappointing. Is this an anomaly or an unfortunate trend?

Okay. That's a good question. First of all, we have processed 2 55 ton loads of material from Australia from Mandalay. We have had some issues with that. The material was out of spec and which that means is it had above contracted amounts of arsenic. And that is a problem in that when we process that material that arsenic ends up being in the finished product. And so if you're a buyer of that material, you have to be told that there's arsenic involved in it. So that has been an issue.

Number two question though, related to the 55 tons, which is our third load from Mandalay that was held up by China since May. That has gone back to Australia. It has left Australia, I think, as of 2 or 3 days ago and is not due to Mandalay until mid-September. So that material will be assayed very well to be sure it doesn't have the kind of arsenic that the first 2 loads had. If it does, then we will have another problem.

So we are not counting on future material for Mandalay. That's why we've been soliciting material from all these other countries and working with other areas. We think that the arsenic issue related to Mandalay is associated with their gold mine as they go deeper in that mine, arsenic levels appear to be going up. So that's going to be a problem for us or any other processor. So we'll have to deal with that when we finally conclude it. But right now, this third shipment is now on the water will be our last unless we can renegotiate our contract.

Our next question is, what are the next steps in the development, if any, of your tungsten bearing properties? If I recall correctly, it was a DoD idea that you acquired this property. I've heard that this is extremely difficult to mine tungsten due to low concentrations and ore hardness. Wondering about the economics of tungsten mining from your perspective.

I'll say a couple of things, and I'll let Joe jump in here. One thing that is really, I think, important here is that there is existing refining capacity in the media area, which gives us, we think, a very attractive price for processing the material. As I also mentioned earlier, there is no other active tungsten mines in the U.S. or Canada. Tungsten is a necessary ingredient for the military, predominantly for tanks. Tungsten is the second hardest material behind diamonds and is something that's -- it's needed rather than -- China has been historically the primary provider of tungsten, and it was banned when antimony was banned.

So Joe, regarding that question, do you have any comments you'd like to add?

The property is known as a low grade, but an open [ pittable ] property. We are trying to complete studies so that the ideal situation would be that we could upgrade it on site through gravity separation. In other words, crush it only, no grinding, no chemicals, gravity separate so that you increase that grade, therefore, less tons to truck somewhere. As to where we can truck, I mentioned earlier, the Strathcona mill is underutilized. It's a modern, well-run facility, I think, 10,000 tons a day, which means your cost per ton are relatively low compared to smaller mills.

A neighbor in the area, Magna Mining has shipped a 20,000 ton nickel, copper bulk sample to Strathcona and from what's available to the public, my understanding is they're very happy with the results that happened there. I have not -- we as a corporation have not talked to Glencore or to the folks at the Strathcona mill. But we want to do our homework first, do our gravity separation tests and then proceed to the next step.

Simultaneously, as I mentioned earlier, we're into the permitting. We don't anticipate any problems there, but there is a routine to be followed, and that routine stretches out more than a year, you need the four seasons collection of data, winter, spring, fall and summer. We intend to get that started by the 1st of September. And we are allowed to take a bulk sample, much larger bulk sample than is normally available on federal ground in the U.S., which is in the 1,000 ton range. We're looking at somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 tons. That's all from me Gary.

Appreciate it. Operator, we'll take one more question as we've been a little over an hour.

Yes. Okay. Our question is, where will UAMY process the tungsten? Will you build a new facility?

I think Joe just answered that question. There's a local processor there that we would use rather than us try to build something new. So that -- I think that question is answered. We'll take one more, operator.

Okay. No problem. Why is your North American antimony feedstock supplier shipping more in recent quarters than in past years?

Well, that's because we renegotiated our contract back in February, we -- and also, obviously, they have more supply. They've been running their facilities at a much higher rate than they had historically. And there's really no other place for them to take this material, but to us. Otherwise, they would have to take it to a hazardous waste dump and pay for it. So I think it's a combination of our -- renegotiation of our contract earlier this year as well as their need to get rid of more material, which is a positive -- double positive for us.

With that, I think we're done, operator.

Yes. That's the end of our question-and-answer session. So I'll hand back to Gary for closing remarks.

Okay. I'd just like to close by making a few comments. Obviously, we're involved in antimony procurements and what's going on around the world. I actually had lunch today with a guy from London, England that I consider kind of an antimony expert, and we were trading thoughts. And there's no doubt, as I've said before, there is a worldwide shortage of antimony. And it's one of the few critical minerals that there's not an easy answer for. There's not like there's going to be a huge deposit found somewhere that we don't know about. It will be an assembly of lots of different smaller quantities of ore from different places.

And that's why when you see our news release talking about 5, 6 countries that we're acquiring this material for, and we're working on another country, too. It's hard gathering this all together and getting it into a place that can be processed. That's why one of the largest antimony smelters in the world located online is shut down 1.5 years ago. No supply. There's not enough supply of the product. So our company is going to change that. We're going to change that with our Montana properties that we've got leased as well as our Alaskan properties. And as our supply continues to develop and grow, we will expand our operations accordingly.

And we have a lot of growth potential in Mexico because of the land position we have. And this expansion we're doing in Montana will be it. That's all we can do there. We'd have to have a new facility somewhere else. So I think we're in a great position. I think we're making all the right moves to grow the business as we're growing, and it should be -- the financial results we have in the third and fourth quarter should represent that. And then we're looking for a very exciting 2026.

So with that, thank you for your support and look forward to some news announcements as we continue to build this company.

Thank you so much. This does conclude today's webcast, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.