Strategic Shift: Advancing Black Raven Amid Growing Antimony Demand

Report Highlights

• • Despite its designation as a critical mineral by both the U.S. and Canada, North America is 100% import-reliant for antimony.
  • These supply constraints have driven prices higher (+33% YTD), and accelerated efforts to develop secure North American antimony projects to meet growing demand.
• We view CRI’s decision to advance the Black Raven project as an excellent move by CRI, as it provides commodity diversification, particularly given that CRI’s flagship/legacy projects (Florence Lake and Taylor Brook) are prospective for nickel deposits. Nickel prices have been on a downward trend primarily due to oversupply.
• Black Raven will be the company’s near-term focus, while only limited capital will be directed toward the Taylor Brook and Florence Lake nickel projects until market conditions improve.
• Black Raven is an early-stage project with two historic small-scale mines, and multiple gold-antimony-silver-copper-zinc-lead showings. Sampling has returned high grades of up to 35.1% antimony, 35.50 g/t gold, and 1,118 g/t silver. CRI is planning a detailed exploration program, beginning with drilling. While it is too early to comment on the project’s ultimate potential, we believe the preliminary exploration results are highly encouraging, and warrant comprehensive, property-wide exploration. The upcoming drill program should provide valuable insights into the project’s prospectivity.
• Drilling will be funded by a fully committed $3M equity financing, which the company plans to close shortly.  We will follow results closely, and update our outlook accordingly. 

Price and Volume (1-year)

Portfolio Summary

CRI’s near-term focus is advancing the Black Raven antimony–gold project

In addition, the company owns two high-grade nickel prospects — Taylor Brook and Florence Lake — both with potential to host nickel sulfide deposits, a key source of Class 1 nickel used in lithium-ion batteries 

Black Raven Antimony (Sb)-Gold (Au) Project 

CRI can acquire a 100% interest in the property by issuing 12M shares, making staged cash payments totaling $120k, and committing $1.2M toward exploration expenditures. The property spans 31.25 km², and is located 60 km northwest of Gander in central Newfoundland.

Excellent infrastructure: Trans-Canada Highway access, deep-water ports, power, and skilled labor

Located 100 km south of the former Beaver Brook antimony mine

Black Raven hosts two former gold mines, Frost Cove and Stewart, along with multiple mineral occurrences, including gold, antimony, silver, copper, zinc, and lead

Underground operations at these mines ran between 1890 and 1918

A recent due diligence sampling program returned exceptional results, with grades of up to 35.1% antimony, 35.50 g/t gold, and 1,118 g/t silver; significantly higher than the typical global range of 0.1% to 1.0% antimony for most deposits.

A subsequent prospecting program returned significant values of antimony, gold, silver, lead, and zinc

CRI has traced an 800 m antimony-gold vein at the Frost Cove mine, and a 600 m gold vein at the Stewart mine 

Upcoming Catalysts

Drilling is set to begin shortly

Overall, we believe these preliminary results are highly encouraging, and justify comprehensive, property-wide exploration. Management has initiated metallurgical studies on vein samples from the Frost Cove mine, and is planning:

• LiDAR and orthophoto surveys
• Sampling and trenching at both the Frost Cove and Stewart mines
• Drilling at Frost Cove

The following sections briefly summarize recent work on the company’s other two projects, although management has no near-term plans to advance them, as the focus remains on Black Raven.

Taylor Brook Polymetallic Project (100% interest)

This project hosts high-grade nickel sulfide mineralization with associated copper and PGEs, similar to the Voisey’s Bay area of Labrador, one of the largest nickel deposits in the world

Pre-resource stage. Located near the Trans-Canada Highway, with access to power and ports

Taylor Brook hosts two mineralized zones: the Taylor Brook Gabbro Complex, and the Layden Intrusive. Past drilling has returned promising nickel and copper values

Florence Lake Ni-Cu-PGE Project

Located in central Labrador. 70 km from the towns of Postville and Hopedale

The project hosts ultramafic, volcanic-hosted massive, and disseminated sulfide mineralization, similar to the high-grade Raglan nickel deposits in Northern Quebec. Several targets identified

A 2024 surface sampling program returned low- to medium-grade nickel and cobalt values, ranging from 0.2% to 0.32% Ni and 0.01% to 0.076% Co. The program delineated a 7.5 km by 1.0 km nickel-cobalt zone

As mentioned above, CRI has no near-term plans for this project. 

Financials

Subsequent to Q3-FY2025 (May 2025), CRI raised $0.70M through an equity financing, and is currently pursuing a $3M financing (fully committed).

Can raise up to $1.30M from in-the-money options 

Valuation

As the company’s projects remain at an early stage, we continue to refrain from assigning a valuation or rating at this time. While we believe both Taylor Brook and Florence Lake have potential for hosting nickel deposits, near-term catalysts and focus will be directed toward the upcoming drill program at Black Raven. We believe this strategic shift allows CRI to diversify its portfolio beyond nickel, and align with a critical mineral that is attracting growing attention. Early exploration results are highly encouraging, supporting a comprehensive drill program funded by a fully committed $3M equity financing.

Risks 

We are maintaining our risk rating of 5 (Highly Speculative)

We believe the company is subject to the following risks:

• Commodity price fluctuations
• Exploration and development
• None of the projects have a NI 43-101 compliant resource
• Access to capital and potential for share dilution
• Permitting 
• No guarantee that the company will be able to simultaneously advance all its projects