PEAK ASSET: MORNING WRAP 27 February: ASX 200 futures are pointing down 11 points or 0.1 per cent to 9151 | Nvidia dives as AI spending angst persists |Nova is aiming to build one of the ASX’s biggest gold projects AND win America’s antimony race |

Nova is aiming to build one of the ASX’s biggest gold projects AND win America’s antimony race

• Nova Minerals owns one of the ASX’s largest gold assets – the 9.9Moz Estella project in Alaska
• It also has a US$43m US Government grant to become a military-grade antimony producer as soon as this year
• PFS due in mid-2026 as $400m gold player eyes rerate potential

For a long time a sleeper on the ASX, 2025 proved a breakout year for Alaskan gold and antimony developer Nova Minerals (ASX:NVA).

The $400 million capped firm saw its shares hit a three-year high of $1.54 in October last year, powered by a wave of enthusiasm around critical minerals stocks as Donald Trump’s America and Anthony Albanese’s Australia knocked up a deal to invest in metals dominated by China.

But back at 86c today, the investment proposition is arguably even stronger for Nova, with a US$43 million grant in hand from the US Department of Defense to fast-track antimony production at the same time as gold prices eclipse US$5000/oz.

That’s put real ballast behind its already large Estelle gold project in the 220Moz Tintina gold belt, one of the most substantial across any ASX junior in terms of ounces in the ground at 9.9Moz.

By way of comparison, Canadian market darlings Snowline Gold (~8Moz at 1.21g/t) and New Found Gold (2Moz at a higher grade ~2g/t) are running at respective valuations of C$3.1bn and C$1.2bn, while on the American mainland Montana antimony smelter operator US Antimony is trading at a US$1.2bn market cap.

“I mean you know there’s obviously differences between all these companies but those are some good comparables to look at when the re-rates come,” Nova executive director and CEO Christopher Gerteisen said.

While the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry, Nova has a string of in-built catalysts Gerteisen thinks can get the firm to its goal – eventually becoming a major gold producer at the same time as it develops one of a handful of domestic antimony assets ready to supply the US military.

Antimony: The immediate upside

There are two big catalysts on the horizon, according to Gerteisen. One is a pre-feasibility level study for Estelle’s RPM and Korbel gold deposits.

It will build on a 2023 scoping study that projected a mine churning out 2.25Moz over more than 17 years that boasted a 53% internal rate of return at a gold price of just US$1800 per ounce.

With spot gold recently hitting as much as triple that, the upside is obvious even before pen hits paper.

Then there is the short-term upside in developing one of a handful of US antimony deposits that could be producing as soon as this year.

The aforementioned Department of Defense/War grant will allow Nova to dig out massive stibnite veins literally popping out of the ground like Arnold’s biceps in Pumping Iron. Nova will process them 100km away at a facility in Port Mackenzie.

Nova’s aim is to supply clean, high-grade antimony tri-sulphide to the Pentagon, the product used in munitions.

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