$43.4 million federal grant awarded to mining project in western Mat-Su

The U.S. Department of War (formerly defense department) has made a $43.4 million grant to Nova Minerals, an Australian company, to assist in exploring a deposit of antimony near a gold deposit the company is developing in the western Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Antimony is a strategic metal commonly used in the manufacture of munitions.

Alaska Range Resources LLC, a U.S. subsidiary of Nova Minerals, will receive the grant under the U.S. Defense Production Act, which allows the government to help finance projects that are important to national defense. The Nova Minerals grant will also provide a boost for the proposed West Susitna access road as well as the Mat-Su borough’s Port MacKenzie.

“We are proud to have Alaska Range Resources partner with the U.S. Department of War to help secure a fully domestic, redundant supply chain for the munitions and other defense products our troops need to keep our nation and allies safe,” said Nova Minerals’ CEO Christopher Gerteisen in a statement.

In addition to munitions and ammunition for military use antimony is important in the making of a wide range of traditional and high-tech applications, including semiconductors and energy systems, Gerteisen said.

The initiative appears to be part of a broad strategy by President Donald Trump to have the government fund and sometimes invest in companies that are exploring for critical minerals. In addition to the Nova Minerals grant the U.S. Department of Energy has taken an ownership stake in Trilogy Metals, a Canadian company exploring copper discoveries in the Ambler Mining District in Northwest Alaska.

The $36.5 million purchase of Trilogy shares will fund a renewed exploration drilling at the Arctic and Bornite copper discoveries made by Trilogy and its partner, an Australian-owned company, South 32. Previously, and under the administration of former President Joe Biden, the Defense Department awarded a grant to Graphite One, a company planning development of a graphite mine on the Seward Peninsula in western Alaska.

If Nova Minerals moves into development of its gold and antimony discoveries the mining will facilitate development of the planned 99-mile West Susitna Access Project, a road that would open undeveloped lands in the western part of Mat-Su to industrial and recreation uses.

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA, is developing the road and has filed for the federal permits needed. AIDEA says the road will be open to the public and will not be restricted to industrial uses.

While many Mat-Su residents support the road because it will open more areas for sports fishing and hunting people who own recreational cabins in the area have expressed concerns because of increased access and noise and dust that could result from the trucking of ore from a mine to Port MacKenzie.

There are also worries about the design of the road and whether it will be wide enough and with enough pullouts to safely accommodate travel the general public along with large ore trucks going loaded to Port MacKenzie and returning empty to the mine.

Also, if the antimony deposit is developed it will likely lead to construction of an ore processing facility at Port MacKenzie, the industrial port on Upper Knik Arm that is owned and operated by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, according to sources familiar with the project.

This would not only bring new business to the but also, along with the mine, new industrial property tax base to the Mat-Su borough, which is now largely dependent on residential and commercial property taxpayers.

Nova Minerals’ discoveries are west of Skwentna. The company’s Estelle gold project includes 514 patented state mining claims located along an approximate 25-mile trend of mineralization that holds about 20 discovered prospects including two with multi-million ounce gold resources that are being explored.