United States Antimony (UAMY) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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DATE

Nov. 12, 2026

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Chairman and CEO - Gary C. Evans
• Board member, Executive Vice President, and Chief Mining Engineer - Joe Bardswich
• Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer - Shawn Winkler
• Managing Director and Director of Engineering - Will Werner
• Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer - Aaron Tenesch
• Vice President of Investor Relations - Jonathan Miller

TAKEAWAYS

• Revenue -- $10.1 million, an increase of 16% reflecting the initiation of shipments to the Defense Logistics Agency.
• Gross Profit -- $4.3 million, rising 113% due to higher realized prices on government contract deliveries.
• Gross Margin -- 42%, up from 23% in the prior-year period as lower feedstock costs offset declining global market prices.
• Antimony Sales Volume -- 468,842 pounds, representing 68% year-over-year growth.
• Average Cost per Pound Sold -- $10.19, a decrease from $20.89 in the prior-year period due to lower feedstock prices.
• Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Revenue -- $5.1 million, generated from the acceptance of approximately 162,327 pounds of antimony metal ingots.
• Industrial Antimony Revenue -- $3.7 million, representing sales of 306,515 pounds primarily as antimony trioxide.
• Zeolite Revenue -- $1.0 million, a 55% increase driven by higher sales volumes to the cattle and industrial markets.
• Net Loss -- $9.5 million, which included a $3.8 million unrealized loss on equity investments and $2.1 million in stock-based compensation expense.
• 2026 Antimony Sales Guidance -- 1.68 million to 1.81 million pounds, representing a 24% increase at the midpoint over 2025.
• 2026 Zeolite Sales Guidance -- 17,500 to 18,500 tons, an increase from 15,433 tons sold through October 2026.
• Liquidity -- $51 million in cash and United States Treasury securities as of Sept. 30, 2026.
• Capital Expenditures -- $28.4 million for the first nine months of 2026, focused on Thompson Falls and Radersburg expansions.
• Government Grant Funding -- $20.3 million authorized of a $27 million award, with $12.8 million realized to date.
• Share Repurchase Program -- $3.1 million in stock repurchased through October 2026, with $98.3 million remaining under authorization.
• Nolan Creek Measured and Indicated Resource -- $314 million in value based on an average grade of 26% antimony and 0.37 ounces of gold per ton.
• Fostung Tungsten Inferred Resource -- 14.77 million metric tons, containing approximately 54.2 million pounds of tungsten.
• DLA Delivery Cycle Time -- 70 days for recent shipments, reduced from as long as 124 days for earlier lots.
• Marketable Securities -- $39.4 million valuation of the company's equity investment in Larvotto Resources Limited as of Sept. 30, 2026.
• Industrial ATO Sales Price -- $10.45 per pound realized in October 2026, compared to $28.72 in the third quarter of 2025.

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RISKS

• Evans indicated that declining commodity prices, which fell from approximately $30 per pound to $8 per pound, require the company to increase volumes to offset the loss in price.
• Winkler stated that the timing of the delivery cycle for government contracts is not within the company's control, as it depends on third-party laboratory approvals and acceptance steps.
• Evans noted that the company has sued a third-party contractor for reimbursement of costs related to the delivery of inferior furnace equipment that caused operational delays.

SUMMARY

United States Antimony Corporation (NYSE:UAMY) reported a transition to volume-based guidance to better account for volatile antimony market prices and the timing of government contract acceptances. Management stated that the company achieved a record monthly sales volume of 310,000 pounds in October 2026, signaling increased throughput at its processing facilities. The company is advancing its vertical integration strategy through the expansion of the Thompson Falls smelter and the start-up of the Radersburg flotation facility. Management indicated that the company remains the only domestic producer of antimony in North America, a position supported by federal executive orders requiring domestically sourced minerals for defense applications.

• Gary C. Evans stated, "We cannot control antimony prices, but we have navigated them extremely well during a declining market by increasing volume sales."
• The company submitted two proposals totaling $110 million to the Defense Industrial Base Consortium for domestic tungsten exploration and hydrometallurgical processing.
• Jonathan Miller reported that institutional ownership increased to more than 60% of outstanding shares as of Sept. 30, 2026, up from virtually zero in late 2023.
• Management submitted a $45 million proposal to the U.S. Department of State for critical minerals infrastructure along the Chad-Cameroon corridor.
• Will Werner noted that the company is awaiting Mine Safety and Health Administration approval to begin a 1,000-ton exploration bulk sample at Nolan Creek.
• Aaron Tenesch indicated that the new Radersburg laboratory is fully commissioned for fire assay, digestion, and titration to support internal production.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• Antimony Trioxide (ATO): A chemical compound used primarily as a flame retardant in plastics and textiles.
• Defense Logistics Agency (DLA): The U.S. government agency responsible for managing the national defense stockpile.
• Hydrometallurgy: A method for obtaining metals from ores using aqueous chemical processes.
• S-K 1300: An SEC regulation governing the disclosure requirements for mining properties.
• Stibnite: The primary sulfide mineral from which antimony is extracted.
• Zeolite: A group of microporous minerals used in water filtration, agriculture, and environmental cleanup.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Greetings. Welcome to the United States Antimony Corporation Third Quarter and 9 Months Ended September 30, 2026 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, Mr. Gary C. Evans, Chairman and CEO. You may begin.

Gary Evans: Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to all of our listeners today. I wish to start out by introducing the members from our management team who will be joining me on this call today. The 5 additional presenters are as follows: Joe Bardswich, who is a Board member and Executive Vice President as well as our Chief Mining Engineer; Shawn Winkler, who is our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, who's been working with the company since December, but became a permanent fixture at the end of September of this year. Will Werner, who's Managing Director and our also Director of Engineering. He's been with us since the end of February of this year.

Aaron Tenesch is our Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer in the Antimony division. Aaron runs our Radersburg flotation facility up in Montana and our new laboratory that's also located in that same facility for reviewing various minerals. And last is Jonathan Miller, our Vice President of Investor Relations. Before I turn the call over to Shawn Winkler to talk about the financials in greater detail, I'd like to highlight a few of our third quarter accomplishments, which are many. The third quarter revenues increased 16%. Our antimony pounds sold were up 68% this quarter. Our gross profit margin expanded to 42% from 23% in a declining market, which I think says a lot.

And then our gross profit was up 113% to $4.3 million. Shawn, sorry to steal some of your thunder, but I'll let you kind of get into the financials.

Shawn Winkler: Great. Thank you, Gary. As Gary mentioned, you kind of hit some of the highlights there. But as I go into the details, just note some of these figures I go through are rounded. You can find our full detail on our earnings press release and our 10-Q, which hit the tape a few minutes ago. So as Gary mentioned, revenue was $10.1 million. That was up 16%. Notably, that's up 28% from Q2, and we'll get into the reasons behind that. Gross profit more than doubled to $4.3 million and gross margin, as Gary mentioned, did have a very nice increase over the quarter. We sold about 469,000 pounds of antimony. That's up 68% year-over-year.

Of that, 162,000 pounds approximately went to the DLA for -- and the sales price on that totaled about $5.1 million in aggregate. The balance of our antimony sales of about 307,000 pounds went primarily to industrial customers generating about $3.7 million in revenue. Our cost per pound sold fell to $10.19 from $20.89, largely reflective of a broader antimony pricing market. Of note, our zeolite revenue rose 55% year-on-year to approximately $1.04 million for the quarter. Operating expenses were $10.3 million. That is an increase, but some of that is additive over time as $3.4 million of that was directed to exploration at some of our attractive mining claims.

Of the $3.8 million, part of that was additionally a $3.8 million noncash loss on our Larvotto strategic investment. Net loss totaled $9.5 million or $0.06 per share. Hitting on operations, our industrial business held up well. ATO pounds sold rate rose 10% year-on-year. And then our net margins have held steady with a decrease both in sales price and feedstock. Through 9 months, we've invested $28.4 million in capital projects, mainly the Thompson Falls expansion in Radersburg, partially offset by $12.8 million of Department award grant proceeds that we've realized. Of our total grants awarded to date, $27.0 million, $20.3 million of those have been authorized, of which we've realized the $12.8 million I just mentioned.

Hitting the balance sheet, we ended September with $51 million in cash and treasuries. Larvotto shares are worth $39.4 million as well. and we have nothing drawn against a $19 million margin line. Inventory rose to $28.1 million as we staged material for DLA. And through October, we bought about -- bought back about $3.1 million of stock with $98.3 million still authorized. To hit upon the DLA, we delivered 7 DLA shipments. It's about 276,000 pounds. Those have been accepted and paid for totaling about $8.7 million in revenue. We still have about $48.6 million of sales to the DLA contracted through 2029. We have made significant progress in the cycle time of sampling through delivery of the DLA.

We've gotten that down of our recent shipments to about 70 days. But I will note, DLA, we're depending upon DLA approvals at various steps. So ultimately, the timing -- cycle time is not in our control, although both parties are working great to -- very nicely together to increase that. Right now, we have additional lots 8 to 11, about 122,000 pounds that have been sampled in early October with timing of delivery ultimately and acceptance by the DLA TBD. And then we have lots 12 through 14 behind that. I want to hit on guidance per our press release, we are changing methodologies. Previously, we have our guidance of $60 million to $75 million of revenue.

We need to move that to volume. Obviously, revenue is impacted by both our speed of deliveries, but also overall market prices, which we cannot control. So we are initiating guidance for the full year of 2026. We expect to sell 1.68 million to 1.81 million pounds of antimony. That's up 24% at the midpoint year-on-year. That includes 276,000 to 356,000 pounds to the DLA in total, of which -- that on the low end does not include any further deliveries to the DLA this year. At the high end, we do have 2 more trucks to be accepted. Guidance also includes a sale of 17,500 to 18,500 tons of zeolite.

Of note, all volumes of DLA that do not get delivered this year move to the right into '27. They are not lost. Gary, with that, I'll hand it back to you.

Gary Evans: Thank you, Shawn, and we're very proud to have Sean on board. He's been a great addition to our finance and accounting team. Joe Bardswich, who is Manager of our -- he's Head of Chief Mining Engineers managing most all of our critical mineral projects. Joe, why don't you give us an update on your activities?

Lloyd Bardswich: Thank you, Gary. I will start with the Fostung deposit near Espanola, Ontario in South Central Canada. In August, we were privileged to have an on-site traditional blessing ceremony performed by Elders from the Whitefish River First Nations, the closest First Nation to the actual deposit site. As promised to them on more than one occasion, we remain committed to working in concert with all of the First Nations on whose traditional lands we are working as we move forward.

We are hopeful that with the application of new technology and utilization of our technical and financial capabilities, we will be able to create value from this tungsten deposit that has been dormant since its discovery 45 years ago in 1981. In September, we contracted with the First Nations-based contractor, and they were able to strip overburden soils to expose bedrock on the east end of the deposit. We drilled 32 confirmation holes totaling 2,100 feet on this portion of the deposit. Drill cuttings have been sent to our Radersburg lab in Montana for analysis and results are coming in.

Upon receipt of the balance of these assay results, we anticipate that we'll be able to design a drill and blast program to produce feed for an on-site crushing, screening and gravity concentration program. That concentrate could then be trucked for further upgrade at a local flotation plant and/or sale to a Michigan or Ohio-based ammonium paratungstate plant. We previously engaged the Toronto Office of independent geological consulting firm, SRK Consulting to author a technical report meeting the SEC's-K 1300 requirements. They calculated an inferred mineral resource of 14.77 million metric tons, grading 0.17% WO3 containing 54.17 million pounds of tungsten with a future gross value of $4.6 billion based on recent tungsten worldwide pricing.

Also in Ontario, we conducted a soil sampling program on our Dubreuilville area gold-silver prospect following up on the very high results from an Ontario government lake settlement sampling program. Results from this work are expected by year-end. Moving to Montana. We were held up this spring at our Stibnite Hill mining project as the Montana DEQ reviewed our permits, standard operating practices, et cetera. And after making some requested modifications, we were able to resume operations in early July. Historically, the prominent stibnite vein on this mountain, Stibnite Hill, has been mined by underground methods but were shut down in 1983 when the decision was made to relocate operations to Mexico.

Veins on Stibnite Hill are generally about 2 feet in thickness, flat-lying, dipping at 25 degrees, making underground mining difficult. Mining operations utilizing modern surface methods were started up in mid-October of last year instead of trying to go back underground. Advances in excavation equipment design has made it possible to excavate these narrow veins from the surface. 50 loads of ore, approximately 800 wet tonnes were trucked to the Radersburg mill during October and early November of last year. The grade was about 10%. Restarting our mining operations in July of this year, we've been able to truck close to 2,000 tonnes through the Radersburg mill.

We anticipate that as soon as we complete upgrades to this mill, which are underway, we will be able to produce material meeting military specs for primers for ammunition. But I will leave that for our metallurgical expert, Aaron Tenesch, to elaborate on that process. I will note that our Radersburg mill is a modern flotation mill and our metallurgical team will operate it both efficiently and economically. Turning to Alaska. We planned a program in the Ester Dome area near Fox, Alaska, similar to what we were able to do in Montana. Depth of soil overburden were deeper than expected, and it was not until late in this season that antimony, gold and silver were finally discovered in bedrock.

We were pleasantly surprised by some particularly high silver values. At this point, preparation of samples for shipments to our Montana laboratory are in full swing, and we are continuing with the drilling program at our Ester Dome site. It is a deep overburdened property that has previously seen underground mining of placer gold, silver and antimony. The KM property in the Maclaren River area. This property was acquired by staking 2 years ago after a state of Alaska exploration program revealed very high values of copper and outcrop, averaging 16.5% copper, 2.2 ounces of silver and 0.08 ounces of gold per tonne.

We mobilized the drill core to the site, but we're only able to get a single core hole drilled before an early winter force that to shut down. Low copper values were encountered near the bottom of the hole. The core will be assessed and assayed during the winter lull. Stibnite Creek property. This property was also acquired by staking 2 years ago. We spent a considerable sum on cleanup of past work by others that included an on-site mill as a prerequisite for gaining permits, including access permits. This year, the decision was made to curtail operations until a more favorable arrangement could be made with the regulatory authorities regarding our obligation to clean up a third-party disturbances.

One of our major properties is the Nolan Creek property, and I'll pass this over to William Werner to update us on Nolan.

Will Werner: This is Will Werner. Since our acquisition of the previously abandoned Nolan Creek mining claims in January of this year, the company has been evaluating the 500-acre prospects for both antimony and gold. The exploration underground workings driven in 2007 by the previous operator on Workman's bench has been identified as the highest potential for near-term mining operations. We are presently permitted for 1,000 tonne bulk sample to be collected from the underground workings. This material will be transported to our facility in Radersburg and tested for economic potential. Considering the existing and preliminary information gathered to date by the company, we are expecting $6,000 per tonne value with current prices of both antimony and gold.

Our preliminary analysis indicates that the deposit will be economic with only the antimony revenue and the gold will be an additional byproduct of the operation. Work for this last quarter has been focused on rehabilitating the 7-mile access of road to the site from the Dalton Highway in order to enable the mobilization of heavy equipment by our chosen third-party mining contractor. Since mobilizing our mining contractor over a month ago, work has begun to rehabilitate the access to the underground and bring it to modern standards. To deliver year-round water for the operations, U.S. Antimony has drilled 2 new wells on site, which are available now as private water sources.

Safety procedures and SOPs have been developed and submitted to MSHA for approval. We have also been working with the BLM and third-party cultural specialists to avoid any historical resources and clean up the area in order to prepare the site for operations. U.S. Antimony is focused on leveraging our people, expertise and financial wherewithal to properly clean up the site to continue the exploration and define a production program that the property merits. We are working on filing a plan of operations that would include full-scale underground mining of the stibnite and gold that makes up the major portion of veins running into the side of the hill.

An independent S-K 1300 technical report written by independent professional geologists, well known to the USAC staff and throughout Alaska has -- was completed recently. This report indicates the measured and indicated material has an average grade of 26% antimony and 0.37 ounces per tonne of gold, providing a contained value of $386 million using current prices as shared in our recent press release and Form 8-K filing with the SEC. Back to you, Gary.

Gary Evans: Thanks, Will. Let's now move on to Aaron Tenesch. Aaron?

Aaron Tenesch: Thank you, Gary. I will keep my comments on 3 specific areas: antimony procurement, the Radersburg critical mineral mill and the Americas Gold and Silver joint venture. We are continuing with regular shipments of antimony feedstock for both the Thompson Falls and Madero facilities. Approximately 200 tons of smelter-ready ore are shipped into Madero per month and roughly 400 tonnes per month of various midstream ore metallic feedstocks are shipped into Thompson Falls, primarily from foreign sources. While way behind schedule on delivery, the Hydromet facility located in Bolivia continues to ramp up and provide valuable insight and experience that will support the Hydromet system presently being designed in our joint venture with Americas Gold and Silver.

Further supply sources continue to be developed. Moving on to Radersburg, Montana. This site has moved into the operating phase during the third quarter to concentrate the approximately 2,800 tonnes of high-grade ore already mined and received from Stibnite Hill, Montana that has been delivered to our site. Feed belt samples of this ore have assayed between 10% and 16% antimony. A shipment of processed concentrates is now ready to be shipped to the Madero smelter and material has been sent to the Thompson Falls facility to undergo further processing towards producing mil-spec antimony trisulfide.

The Radersburg facility is currently in a short shutdown period to allow the installation of advanced flotation equipment consisting of an Eriez’ StackCell, Eriez’ column flotation and a second larger plate and frame filter press. This newly added equipment will accommodate higher throughput of the high-grade stibnite feeds from Stibnite Hill as well as material from our recently opened Nolan Creek, Alaska mine. It will also produce 2 concentrates, one at antimony concentrations appropriate for mills antimony trisulfide production and one at typical smelter grades that will facilitate optimal recoveries.

We are also conducting a substantial upgrade to the electrical service at Radersburg that will allow the crushing circuit to be operated on line power while also providing increased service for the newly installed flotation equipment and future additions. Once the current operating crew is trained and accustomed to the new flotation equipment, a second phase of hiring and shift expansion will commence. The new on-site laboratory is fully commissioned with daily operations of sample prep, fire assay, digestion and titration, flotation testing and XRF analysis using the new 3,000-watt Rigaku Primus III+ wavelength dispersive XRF unit. Further upgrades to the air handling system and ancillary equipment continue to enhance safety, performance and overall efficiency.

The joint venture with Americas Gold and Silver in Idaho continues to advance towards final engineering phases. There should be some other announcements made in the near future concerning these activities. Test work continues to design and protect an evolved process that optimizes reagent usage and the integration of tetrahedrite and stibnite feedstocks. As a reminder to everyone, the only antimony currently being produced in North America is Americas Gold and Silver and ourselves. We are processing 100% of the antimony in our operating systems. There is no one else. Thank you, and back to you, Gary.

Gary Evans: Thanks, Aaron. And now let's jump to Jonathan Miller in charge of Investor Relations. Jonathan?

Jonathan Miller: Thank you, Gary. I'll keep my remarks focused on our capital markets activity during the third quarter, the evolution of our expanded shareholder base and how we're adjusting our Investor Relations strategy going forward. First, I want to acknowledge the obvious. Our share price has declined significantly over the last half year, and we recognize the frustration that situation creates for existing shareholders. We also recognize that investor expectations have not always aligned with the timing of our operational execution and financial results. That's something we have to address through performance, more consistent communication and greater transparency around our progress.

While we can't control broader market conditions, elevated short interest or short-term trading activity, we can control how effectively we communicate with investors, the quality of our institutional relationships and the expectations we establish. Ultimately, we believe consistent execution and greater transparency are the most effective ways to build investor confidence. During the third quarter, we continued expanding our institutional outreach, both domestically and internationally, where we saw immediate traction. We completed our first international non-deal roadshow in London organized through Barclays Bank, where Gary and I met with institutional investors and introduced U.S. antimony to a completely new segment of international investment community.

Domestically, we participated in the Piper Sandler Growth Frontiers Conference and continued our institutional engagement through additional meetings and non-deal roadshows. We also completed a non-deal roadshow with Texas Capital Securities, which just last month, initiated equity research coverage on U.S. antimony with a target price of $9.50 per share. We've also made the decision to place greater emphasis on identifying and developing relationships with fundamental long-term institutional investors who understand the capital requirements, operational complexity and time lines associated with building a domestic critical minerals supply chain. We want shareholders who will evaluate us on execution, production growth, contract fulfillment, financial performance and the long-term economics of our assets rather than short-term trading momentum.

During the quarter, certain members of our Board of Directors, including our CEO and senior management team, also made additional open market purchases of UAMY shares. Separately, in August, our Board authorized a share repurchase program of up to $100 million, which Shawn previously outlined in his remarks. I think it's important to put into perspective how far we've come in a relatively short period of time. Less than 3 years ago, U.S. Antimony was a very different company.

When the current leadership team assumed responsibility in late 2023, we had virtually no institutional ownership, a much smaller operating footprint, limited capital markets visibility, no significant sales contracts in a business that had not yet established the scale or financial resources necessary to pursue the opportunities in front of us. Since then, we've rebuilt the entire leadership team and Board, materially strengthened our balance sheet, expanded our mining and processing operations, secured significant government and commercial contracts, grew the business with no indebting, increased annual revenue from approximately $8 million in 2023 to more than $39 million in 2025 and grown institutional ownership to more than 60% of our outstanding shares.

As of September 30, 2026, we held approximately $51 million in cash, cash equivalents, bonds and debt and equity securities, providing us with substantial financial resources to support our ongoing operations and growth initiatives. We've also expanded our equity research coverage, strengthened our relationships across the institutional investment community and established a much broader presence in the capital markets. Looking ahead, we're also focused on the growing demand for domestically sourced antimony, particularly within the U.S. defense industrial base. Federal initiatives under Executive Order 14415 signed July 20, 2026, and going into effect in January 2027, aimed at reducing dependence on foreign critical minerals are creating opportunities for domestic producers, of which we are the only one.

We're actively working to identify manufacturers and defense contractors that rely on Antimony and in coordination with the U.S. government, help facilitate their transition toward reliable domestic supply. As our expanded production capacity comes online, we see opportunities to meaningfully increase commercial antimony ATO sales in 2027. We're also pursuing additional government funding opportunities to support the expansion and diversification of our critical minerals operations. In September, we submitted a $45 million project proposal to the U.S. Department of State under its U.S. Africa Strategic Investment Program with $36 million in requested federal funding. The proposed project focuses on critical minerals infrastructure, logistics and supply chain development along the Chad Cameroon corridor.

Separately, we submitted 2 proposals totaling approximately $110 million through the Defense Industrial Base Consortium, or DIBC, focused on domestic tungsten exploration, extraction and hydrometallurgical processing. Both proposals have advanced through an initial selection process and remain under consideration for potential next steps. Combined, these initiatives represent approximately $124 million in potential new government funding. While none of these amounts have been awarded, they reflect our ongoing efforts to pursue government-supported growth opportunities. Investors now expect the infrastructure we've built, the capital we've invested and the contracts we've secured to translate into consistent production growth, increased sales and stronger financial performance.

That's a reasonable expectation, one that is reflected in today's financial result, and it's where our focus continues to be. Our responsibility in Investor Relations is to communicate that progress accurately, address setbacks directly and build a shareholder base that understands both the opportunities and the risks associated with our business. Going forward, our emphasis will be on fewer broad promotional initiatives and more substantive engagement with long-only institutions whose investment objectives align with our long-term strategy. We believe that a more disciplined approach to investor targeting, combined with greater operating transparency and measurable execution is the right path toward continuing to build investor confidence. Thank you, and I'll turn it back to you, Gary.

Gary Evans: Thank you, Jonathan. There are a couple of things I'd like to highlight before I summarize and we go to a question-and-answer session. As everybody knows, a company is nothing without good qualified management. I want to highlight some new hires that we have just -- that just occurred in 2026. In February, we hired a Manager of Engineering. In March, we hired a Managing Director of Engineering and Country Manager for the country of Mexico. In April, we hired a controller in the accounting department. In June, we hired a Managing Director of Critical Minerals, who is a geologist. In August, we hired a Chief Accounting Officer.

In September, we hired a General Manager of the 2 Thompson Falls smelters. In October, our new Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, who you heard speak today, Shawn Winkler was hired. In November, a Corporate Environmental and Safety Manager. Again, we are building a team from basically scratch to where we are today. The other thing I'd like to point out has to do with the November federal elections. Obviously, the United States had a big changeover in both the House and the Senate. So with this taking place, how is that going to affect the critical minerals space? I believe very little because this is a bipartisan issue, not just a Republican issue.

There will likely be some people jumping ship that are currently working for various agencies because they've been appointed, but I think that will be limited. So from our perspective, like the executive order that goes in effect January 1 was a Biden executive order. So I think that our space is pretty protected. It's badly needed. Everybody knows it. And I don't think it will affect us much at all. So let me summarize. We've just reported today what I consider to be a very good quarter with progress made on all fronts. However, it's not yet where we want to be.

We cannot control antimony prices, but we have navigated them extremely well during a declining market by increasing volume sales, but more importantly, significantly improving our margins. The margins should be the thing everybody focuses on. I think shareholders will reward us much better with stronger margins versus sales with limited margins. While we're -- our inventory is at record highs, we have had minimal write-downs. This has not been an easy task. We have a new General Manager in Thompson Falls, who started several months ago.

He has one primary mission, and that's to increase volumes of finished products to move larger and larger ingots and ATO to both the DLA and our expanding industrial customer base, but he has to do it safely. That is a prime factor in our business. We have -- our 2 most important new critical mineral plays that Joe and Will touched on being the Fostung Tungsten up in Ontario and the Nolan Creek in Alaska are progressing quickly. We are anxious to report progress in these 2 plays in early 2027 with material being assayed in our own lab currently in Montana.

We have excellent liquidity that has stayed basically stagnant all year long, even with an ever-growing capital expenditure program. Again, that's not easy to do. It should improve further by year-end because of things that we're doing to increase our liquidity such as collecting amounts due to us from the government as well as repayment of some notes due to us. So competition. We have none in North America. We follow closely all our want to be competitors, and there's a lot of them out there. There is no one coming for at least 3 years or longer, in my opinion. Most of them will flounder and some of them will fail.

By getting bigger, faster, we will ensure our continued success. And so I, for one, want to credit the entire management team of United States Antimony Corporation for the hard work they put in, all the things we've done so very quickly and where I see our future going. So operator, I would like at this point in time to take questions from our listening audience.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]

Jonathan Miller: First question is, is your raw material inventory for the first quarter 2027 large enough to continue to produce enough product for a strong revenue for Q1?

Gary Evans: The answer to that question is absolutely. We are buying inventory almost every week, and Aaron can jump in here in a second. But we have the largest inventory level we've ever had currently on our balance sheet. We're honestly trying to reduce that significantly. And that's what is happening up at Thompson Falls. Our new plant manager is hitting records with respect to the amount of antimony that we are producing on the tailgate of that plant. So inventory and picking up raw material is not a problem. The problem is making sure we buy it right.

We have turned down a lot of customers, and we are going to buy the price right to make sure that we can give shareholders the margins they deserve.

Jonathan Miller: Next question. Are you able to provide any color on how we should be thinking about planned sales into the DLA contract for 2027 on a quarterly basis?

Gary Evans: Obviously, that has been a very difficult thing for us to project. I think we've outlined today why that's the case. It's not an easy task to meet all the requirements of the DLA. We are getting better and better at it. They are getting better and better at it. And I feel like today, we have a rather smooth system going on. We still have obviously a lot to deliver to the DLA, and our goal is to increase that significantly.

But when you have a price of a commodity that's gone from close to $30 a pound down to $8 a pound, it makes you have to move a whole lot faster to make up that loss in price. We are doing it in the volumes. That's why we have gone to a volume projections rather than a dollar projections because we can't control the price of the commodity. When our price does drop down, we buy it cheaper. I mean we're buying raw ore less than $5 a pound.

So we're trying our best to maintain those margins, and we've turned down a lot of a lot of people that are trying to sell us product because they don't have a low enough price, and we're going to make sure we do that. So that's the only thing that I hesitate in saying about volumes is that we're not going to just generate sales to generate sales. That's crazy. We want to make money. That's the goal.

And so ensuring that we're buying product right, buying it from the right parties, buying it with high enough concentrate, so we don't have to work so hard to bring it up to a mill spec material, all is important in achieving our success.

Jonathan Miller: Next question. Antimony prices have dropped from $31 per pound on an earlier shipment to [ $14.06 ] per pound on the latest order, which is still a premium to spot $8 a pound. Heading into 2027, what determines the premium in your contracts? And how do you view the antimony demand market? Also, given the slower-than-anticipated DLA acceptance process, what level of quarterly deliveries can the government realistically make in 2027? Any expected changes with the government with the new Congress?

Gary Evans: No. The contract -- answer to the last question, the contract is the contract. So it's done. So we don't anticipate any changes. We know the DLA and the DoW is very happy with what we've done. We're way ahead of schedule, even though we aren't delivering the volumes yet that we anticipated. That is growing. It's growing monthly. As we reported today, October was a record as far as volumes for our company to the DLA. So yes, the price does come down. It's a variable price, and it's set every time a purchase order is given. We still have a lot of antimony to deliver at prices significantly above $8 a pound.

And we -- you got to remember, we also have certain fees and embedded cost in our price that you don't see. So unquestionably, the DLA wants more material. I personally think that contract will grow substantially as we get more deliveries made. Again, we're the only party that's delivering to the DLA, and we know their inventory is very low. So I see a bright future for many years to come with the DLA and the relationships we formed, the credibility we've created with the Department of War and I see us continuing quarterly to increase our revenue and sales to the DLA.

Jonathan Miller: Next question. How much have you spent at Radersburg to date? And how should we think of spending during the ramp-up at the site going forward ideally by quarter?

Gary Evans: Well, the money that we've spent at Radersburg was the purchase of the facility, which was just under $5 million. We put probably close to $2 million into it, including the lab and the additional equipment that Aaron mentioned during his time speaking. We're pretty much done. There is some money that the DLA is going to give us as part of the Radersburg retrofit. I think that just got approved, if I'm not wrong, Aaron, just a couple of weeks ago. So -- but to answer your question, additional capital for Radersburg is very limited now. I mean we've done pretty much everything we need to do.

Jonathan Miller: Next question. On the DLA lots, TF-8 through TF-11 were all sampled in early October, and you pointed to a cycle of 55 days from sampling to acceptance. On that time line, it seems all 4 lots could be accepted before year-end, but the high end of guidance includes only TF-8 and TF-9. Could you walk us through that?

Gary Evans: Being accepted doesn't mean that we'll get paid. So we have to -- and I'll let Shawn jump in here. He's better at this than me, but there are certain general accepted accounting principles related to government contracts of how we can book that in that quarter. Shawn, do you want to jump in?

Shawn Winkler: Yes. The sampling time line is correct. We're just getting better [indiscernible] in the vein of being conservative.

Gary Evans: We're losing you, Shawn. We're losing you. We can't hear a word you're saying, Shawn.

Shawn Winkler: Is that better?

Gary Evans: Yes.

Shawn Winkler: Okay. sorry about that. Look, in the vein of things we can control, while sampling and the cycle times are getting better, we cannot control release the DLA evaluates our sampling and then we ship and then they test again. So in the vein of trying not to overpromise, we think it's reasonable on the high end that only 2 of those go if we beat that, great. But again, we cannot control those parts of the delivery scheme, and we want to just be as conservative as possible, and we think that's the best estimate we can provide today.

Jonathan Miller: You indicated that industrial customer demand continues to grow. Given that the non-exact pricing of antimony causes wide fluctuations, have you rejected any orders due to this insufficient or inefficient volatile pricing?

Gary Evans: That's a great question. Yes, we actually have formed a pricing committee that includes, I think, 4 or 5 individuals of the company, and we have rejected quite a few orders just in the last 60 to 90 days. And we think we have played our cards right because those orders have been replaced by either new customers or those customers that rejected the price the first time come back a second or third time. Why is that happening? We're the only American-made antimony out there -- there's an executive order that goes in effect January 1 that if you're selling to the military, you got to be sourcing from American Company. And we have very high quality.

We know certain customers have bought from international sources, ATO and sold their wholesalers and they've sold it through their distribution system, and they lost customers over the quality. So we know we have the highest quality, and we know we're the only American made. So therefore, in our opinion, we should get a premium. And so we have been rejecting offers to buy ATO quite a bit over the last 60 to 90 days. And in fact, Fastmarkets, I think, is coming out next week with a new American price, which should be beneficial to us.

Jonathan Miller: Next question. Looking at Thompson Falls and Madero, you have a total of 500 tons per month capacity. though actual production has been ramping more gradually than initially anticipated. Could you provide some color on the current utilization at each facility? What operational constraints remain? And what level of quarterly antimony production you believe is achievable into 2027? Additionally, should we expect more explicit volume guidance going forward rather than relying primarily on capacity targets?

Gary Evans: Well, let's talk about Mexico first. Unquestionably, we had some issues in Mexico. When I mentioned the new hires, I mentioned a new country manager there who's an engineer, and he speaks Spanish. And we have fixed that. We are now able to bring process material from Mexico to Thompson Falls, and we're doing that weekly now. So Thompson Falls has a new supply coming from Mexico that hasn't had for 2 years. So that's changed, and that should help Thompson Falls process additional material more quickly. What is the delay at Thompson Falls? We, as you know, built a new facility, went live in May. Not all the furnaces were up and running.

We had one particular contractor that we have been having problems with for over a year that sold us inferior equipment was late in deliveries, and we pretty much had it. And I'm not going to tell you exactly what it was used for because we have sued them for reimbursement of our cost, and we've gone to another third party to build these parts, and that is pretty well done now. So we had a delay in furnaces that were completely built and brand new because of some parts missing that were necessary to make those furnaces productive. That, again, has pretty much been rectified, and that was a delay. Another is people.

We had to hire a lot of new people. We had to train them. And we knew we needed to make changes at Thompson Falls. We brought in a new General Manager after an exhaustive search to find someone qualified. And he's done a great job, and he's even better the people. We've had to change the culture, the thinking in Thompson Falls, and we've accomplished that. And I've gone up there a couple of times, tried to meet with the people telling them we got to move faster, we got to get better, and we are. Safety is a big concern.

We hired, as I mentioned, on the new hires, we hired a new safety manager who's going to be corporate-wide. And so we're doing all the things that we said we would do. It's just taking longer. People don't realize this is a very complicated business. There's a reason we don't have competition. It is not easy to do what we do. And we've been doing it for a long time. We had some old ways of doing things that we have had to change, and we've had to bring new people in to make those changes. We built a new facility, much more efficient, much more robust. And we will get to those numbers.

I have no doubt about that with the team that we've built, but it's not happening as fast as we want it to happen. And a big part of that has been antimony prices. When prices fall, people just sit back and wait. They don't make orders. They don't want to sell. They're trying to find the bottom. We bottomed out 60, 90 days ago, and now deals can be done. So a lot of the things that have caused us delay with respect to deliveries are out of our control. And our shareholders need to understand that. But if you look at our quarterly production, it continues to grow consistently, and I think you'll see that throughout 2027.

It is difficult, very difficult for us to predict. And there's so many moving parts like buying the antimony, getting it on a ship, does it get delayed, getting it at a port? Is it being inspected? Many, many things go into getting that antimony in a position that we can make a finished product. It's extremely hard to predict. And it's like throwing darts against the wall. So that's why we move to a volume prediction rather than a price prediction because we can't control prices. And I feel great about where we're going. It's just happening slower than we originally anticipated.

Jonathan Miller: Thank you, Gary. I think we have enough time for about 2 to 3 more questions. What are the biggest drivers in antimony pricing given China, Russia generate the most and are not shipping to outsiders, why is the pricing so low for others who are supplying to the rest of the world?

Gary Evans: Aaron, do you want to answer that question? You're the procurement manager.

Aaron Tenesch: Well, really, the best answer that I can give is the premise that China and potentially Russia is not shipping to the rest of the world is wholly incorrect. We know that we run into Chinese pricing in many districts. And there's a further competition for raw material that actually feeds back through that situation on a global scale as well as we know that our greatest competitor out there on the raw material side is also China. So through some of the factors that Gary described earlier, we know that we are bringing a more stable and a more calm market to North America as we separate some of these more volatile markets from our own.

Gary Evans: Jonathan, let's do one more question, okay.

Jonathan Miller: Sure. With targeted monthly supply of 150 tons a month from Bolivia and 120 tons a month from Canada, how much of your 2027 feedstock needs are secured given the 51% year-over-year decline in average cost per pound in Q3 2026, how much further margin improvement could we see at the Stibnite Hill and Nolan Creek begin contributing more feedstock?

Gary Evans: Good question. The First of all, I think Aaron mentioned the Bolivian delivery of antimony flake from the hydromet facility there has been woefully low, very disappointing. We expected 150 tons a month earlier this year, and we've not even gotten 100 tons. So at this point, we can't count on that. That's one of the reasons we're getting repaid on our note. We're disappointed in the outcome of that facility. Not that -- mechanically, the facility is fine. It's operationally, they've had some issues. So we obviously are having to procure from other sources. The source we get out of Canada has been a long, stable source and continues to improve in volume every year.

Again, we're the only ones that can process that material. If we didn't process it, they have to go to a hazardous waste dump. So I feel really good about that and the pricing associated with that. Aaron is bringing material in from a number of different countries. We continue to approve new contracts and new relationships. We're being sought at every day. I mean, when I open up my e-mail in the morning, I typically have 3 or 4 parties from around the world trying to sell us antimony, which I refer all to Aaron.

It's like a bird's nest trying to figure out who's on first and who is a broker and who's got the real material, and that's a job that Aaron deals with every day. And he's been dealing with some of these people 2, 3 years. So Aaron, do you want to jump in and respond to some of those comments?

Aaron Tenesch: Yes, I can. I think that most of these factors have actually been touched on lightly through some of the other questions and the great answers that you've provided, Gary. We do continue to build stronger relationships, but -- and we, of course, have quite a network and system now to deal with these various sources and drill into the reality of them. But I think it's also important to address that our own flow of material through our mines and through both of our facilities continues to also advance and produce more feed that is at an internal price that will be lower than the others.

There's further details, we're not going to broadcast publicly because it creates more competition, and I get 63 new brokers calling me. But fair to say that we have international reps, we have contacts and contracts that are always developing.

Gary Evans: And the Stibnite Hill, which Joe was successful at finding and has moved that material over 2,000 tons to Radersburg, we'll begin processing that, I would imagine, before the end of the year. Is that right, Aaron?

Aaron Tenesch: Yes. A shipment should be going out of concentrates and some of just pure stibnite that we could pick out of the pile without even processing should be shipping down to Madero for initial processing within about a week.

Gary Evans: And then the Nolan Creek is a 2,000 ton bulk sample, which obviously we haven't received yet. We hope to receive that before the end of the year. Is that right? Will, can you jump in there?

Will Werner: Yes, that's correct. Yes. We've got everything ready to go. We're just getting the final approval from MSHA to be able to go underground. There's no development required to get to it. The exploration drift done by the previous operator provides immediate access to ore phases. So we anticipate as soon as that approval is given to us by Mining Safety and Health Administration, that we'll be able to begin collecting that sample. And then if we can get it all on the ground by the 21st of December, then we'll be able to deliver it all to Radersburg by December 31.

Gary Evans: Great. Okay. Well, thank you. I think that's all the questions we'll take today. We have about an hour now in the call. And if you have any specific questions that we haven't answered, feel free to call Jonathan, and we'll try to address them to you. And we appreciate your confidence. And again, I think we had a good quarter and looking forward to continued improvements throughout the year and into 2027. Have a nice day.

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

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