Nova Minerals Corp announced on November 10, 2026, that an engineering assessment of its processing plant at Port MacKenzie, Alaska, has confirmed a front-end crushing, grinding, and concentration capacity of approximately 216,000 tonnes per annum (tpa).
The facility, previously owned and operated by Agnico-Eagle at the Hope Bay Gold Project, incorporates crushing, grinding, gravity, flotation, and leaching circuits. It includes two parallel mill trains, each capable of processing approximately 108,000 tpa, providing operational flexibility and a scalable platform for future commercial operations.
The company stated that the infrastructure provides a foundation for a fully integrated U.S. domestic antimony and critical minerals processing hub. Nova is currently advancing a Phase 1 refinery under a fully funded $43.4 million Department of War (DoW) supported project, targeting production of military-grade antimony trisulphide in 2027. This initial refinery is designed to produce up to approximately 600 tpa of refined antimony.
Capacity modelling indicates that with additional downstream refinery equipment, potential refined antimony production could reach approximately 9,400 tpa based on a 5% antimony feed grade, or up to 20,000 tpa based on a 10% feed grade.
The processing platform is also intended to support the processing of feedstock from Nova's Estelle Project and potentially third-party mineral sources, including tungsten, gallium, bismuth, tellurium, and arsenic.
