LKYRF Is America's Answer To The Critical Mineral Crisis

Checkers
Sep 9
3 min read

Once in a great while, a company emerges that sits at the absolute epicenter of a geopolitical crisis, a technological shift, and a global supply chain shift. Locksley Resources (ASX: $LKY, OTCQB: $LKYRF, FSE: $X5L) is one of those companies. It controls a discovery in the Mojave Desert with potentially massive critical minerals, located inside a corridor already backed by the Pentagon and Big Tech. It is advancing a proprietary technology to solve America's crippling dependency on China for the materials that build our modern world. And with drills turning this quarter ahead of huge federal grant decisions, it's doing it all with a market cap of just ~$40 million.

Bar chart showing China's share of USA critical minerals imports. Yttrium (94%) to Tungsten (29%), with import values in metric tons.

China controls over 85% of rare earth processing and 60% of antimony supply. These are the minerals essential for everything from F-35 fighter jets and EV motors to missile guidance systems and the global energy grid. The United States currently produces none, creating a crippling national vulnerability that has forced Washington's hand. In response, the White House has unleashed Executive Orders and billions in Defense Production Act funding, turning domestic projects like LKYRF’s into national priorities.

Map of California showing the Mojave Project area, Colosseum Mine, and Mountain Pass Mine. Contains distance markers, boundaries, and labels.

LKYRF's Mojave Project could be a big part of the answer to America’s critical mineral shortage. Already the company has reported staggering surface sample results: At its Desert Antimony Mine, assays have returned grades of up to 46% antimony and 1,022 g/t silver, while the nearby El Campo REE Prospect, sampling has yielded up to 12.1% Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO), including key elements used in high-performance magnets. These world-class numbers were found right next to MP Materials’ Mountain Pass, a site is so critical it’s backed by over $400 million in Department of Defense support and a $500 million supply deal with Apple, making the Mojave the undisputed epicenter of the nation's mineral renaissance.

To address the refinement side of this crisis, LKYRF is commercializing a proprietary refining process, DeepSolv, through a partnership with Rice University. The technology uses a low-temperature system to achieve recovery rates over 95%, eliminating the need for toxic, high-energy smelting. The partnership also includes R&D for next-generation antimony batteries, giving LKYRF a clear path to control the entire supply chain, from the rock in the ground to the battery in the grid, and opens the door to eventually license the technology across a sector that must now rebuild from scratch.

Graph of antimony prices from 2005 to 2025 shows a sharp rise to $50K a ton. Title: Antimony Prices Reach Record High on Supply Fears.

Antimony’s price has surged from around $5,500 per ton to a peak above $50,000 before settling at its current level of ~$22,000. The spike in critical minerals such as antimony has helped propel peers like MP Materials (NYSE: $MP) and Ucore Rare Metals (NASDAQ: $UCORE) to market caps of over $11 billion and a quarter of a billion respectively. In stark contrast, LKYRF has a modest market cap of just ~$40 million, despite being the only one of the bunch with exposure to both rare earths and antimony and novel downstream processing technology.

To secure a share of the federal funding up for grabs, the company has obtained a NATO contracting code, a prerequisite for Pentagon grants, and has brought on GreenMet, a Washington D.C. advisory group led by former senior U.S. official Drew Horn, to access billions in national security and energy independence grants. Now, as the company prepares to uplist to a major U.S. exchange, LKYRF is starting a systematic drill campaign on its high-grade Mojave discoveries with results expected just as the DoD and Department of Energy announce major grant awards in the second half of the year.

LKYRF brings together world-class geology, a federally backed location, breakthrough technology, and near-term catalysts in one company. It is also one of the only juniors advancing both rare earths and antimony, two of the Pentagon’s most sought-after materials, on U.S. soil. As Washington pushes to rebuild American industrial independence, LKYRF is already on the inside, positioning itself as a foundational piece of the next generation of America's critical mineral supply chain.

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