Perpetua Resources — Stibnite Gold Project EXIM Loan

Abstract

The Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) unanimously approved a $2.9 billion senior secured long-term loan to support construction of Perpetua Resources' Stibnite Gold Project in Valley County, Idaho — the only identified domestic reserve of antimony, a Tier-1 defense-critical mineral with zero current US production.

Key Contributions / Findings

• Loan structure: $2.9B total, 13-year senior secured facility — $2.4B upfront, remainder covering capitalized interest during construction plus EXIM's exposure fee.
• Program: Make More in America Initiative (MMIA), a congressionally authorized EXIM financing vehicle.
• Terms: interest = US Treasury bond rate + 100bps, fixed at first drawdown; scheduled repayments begin 2030.
• Approval process: followed full technical/financial/environmental/social due diligence and a mandatory 25-day congressional notice period. Loan expected to become available in H2 2026 pending definitive documentation and closing conditions.
• Production timeline: first gold/antimony production targeted 2029, not 2026 — an important correction against any assumption that the 2026 groundbreaking/construction activity implies near-term output.
• Scale: once operational, expected to supply ~35% of US antimony demand in the project's first six years, alongside ~450,000 oz/year gold in its first four years.
• Strategic framing: US Department of War has identified Stibnite as the only domestic mine capable of meeting defense-scale antimony demand by 2029.
• CEO Jon Cherry: "When the federal government and private industry work together on a shared national priority, big things are made possible."
• Expected ~700+ direct jobs annually over mine life, plus legacy-site environmental remediation (the Stibnite district has a history of unremediated historical mining).

Why It Matters (lens: critical-materials — western supply build / antimony)

Directly fills the flagged knowledge gap ("Antimony — Perpetua Resources (Stibnite, Idaho) DoD-backed project; sole US source"). This is the largest single financing commitment yet ingested into the critical-materials KB for a single Western project, and confirms antimony's status as a live minor-metal chokepoint parallel to rare earths — China's antimony export restrictions (not yet covered in this KB; candidate for the next discover pass) are the demand-side driver behind Stibnite's urgency.

Limitations

• Pricing/economics for the antimony byproduct specifically (vs. the primary gold revenue) not broken out in this release.
• China's antimony export-control timeline and current global price are not covered by this source — flag as a follow-on gap for the next /kb discover critical-materials pass.

Source: EXIM Approves $2.9 Billion Loan for Stibnite Gold Project — PR Newswire, May 21, 2026.