The Beaver Brook antimony mine has been suspended, with its owners pointing towards an increase in operating costs due to inflation, harsh winter weather, and lower-than-planned output.  

BBAM in Canada has had a stop-start history since being commissioned in 1997. The mine closed between 1998 and 2008, in 2013, 2019 and 2020, and now again in 2023. Since the 2019 restart, the mine has contributed between 1-2ktpy of contained antimony largely exported to ingot smelters in India, with some output also sent to Oman and Vietnam.

The antimony market has seen tight supply in recent years.  Owing to declining primary stibnite mine production in China, a growing portion of supply has come as a by-product of gold. Russian gold miner Polyus became the world's largest antimony producer in 2018 when it started to sell gold-antimony concentrates  (containing 23kt Sb in 2018) to China.  

However, for large gold companies such as Polyus the revenues of antimony can be effectively negligible. Since gold prices recovered back to around US$1,800/oz in 2020, Polyus has hardly sold any antimony concentrates, shifting the market from a significant surplus in 2018-2020 to a deficit in 2021-2022.

Antimony from BBAM is not large-scale but, given market conditions, every additional removal of supply will impact the market.  Since last year, antimony demand has been supply-driven and a lack of supply has led to lower availability (and therefore consumption y-o-y) in flame retardant applications, according to Project Blue data.