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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 24, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- US Metal News News Commentary - For most of the last decade, the hard part of building a new gold mine in a Western jurisdiction was not finding the ounces. It was getting permission to dig them up. That is starting to change. Governments that spent 2024 and 2025 watching China restrict exports of antimony, a metal used in munitions, flame retardants and solar glass, have since built faster lanes for the projects that could replace it, and gold deposits that happen to carry antimony are among the first to use them. Rua Gold Inc. (OTCQX: NZAUF) (TSX: RUA) (NZX: RGI) is one of the clearest examples, advancing its Auld Creek gold-antimony project in New Zealand through a six-month national Fast-Track Approvals process while companies such as Perpetua Resources Corp. (Nasdaq: PPTA), Nova Minerals Corp (NYSE American: NVA), Dakota Gold Corp. (NYSE American: DC) and i-80 Gold Corp. (NYSE: IAUX) work through their own development timelines in the United States.
The price backdrop explains the urgency. Gold set a record above $5,500 an ounce in late January 2026 and, despite easing since, has held above $4,300 through September. Antimony has cooled from the record near $59,750 per tonne that Fastmarkets recorded in July 2025, and China suspended its export ban on the metal in November 2025, but Western buyers have spent the past two years learning how exposed they were. The result is a development market that rewards two things above all: grade, and time to a permit.
New Zealand's Six-Month Clock
On July 30, 2026, RUA GOLD announced that Auld Creek had been accepted as a listed project under New Zealand's Fast-Track Approvals Act 2024, a regime designed to consolidate consents for nationally significant projects into a single process with a defined decision window. The Company has said it remains on track to submit its substantive application in October 2026 and to publish a pre-feasibility study in December 2026, with the PFS being prepared by Mining One and Pitch Black.
The drilling feeding that study has been getting better, not worse. On September 8, 2026, RUA GOLD reported what it described as its highest-grade drill results to date at Auld Creek, after completing 19,600 metres of resource drilling against a 19,000-metre target. The best intercept returned 0.6 metres grading 136.2 g/t gold equivalent (82.9 g/t gold and 24.8% antimony). Other highlights included 2.7 metres at 23.2 g/t AuEq, 7.0 metres at 9.9 g/t AuEq and a broader 32.0 metres at 2.4 g/t AuEq. The Company also reported its first observations of visible gold at the project.
“These exceptional exploration results are informing the mine plan and reinforcing the significant development potential of the Auld Creek Project,” said Robert Eckford, Chief Executive Officer of RUA GOLD. “The deposit continues to exceed our expectations and remains open in all directions.”
The Company says mineralization now extends over more than 1,000 metres of strike and to more than 500 metres depth, with assays from a further 18 holes pending for an updated Mineral Resource estimate expected in the fourth quarter of 2026. Four rigs are continuing to drill along strike and at depth.
That update will build on a modest starting point. The maiden resource, effective February 27, 2026, stands at 0.3 million tonnes Indicated at 5.67 g/t AuEq for 54,000 ounces and 1.3 million tonnes Inferred at 3.66 g/t AuEq for 150,000 ounces. A preliminary economic assessment announced in May 2026 outlined a compact underground operation with a 5.5-year life, US$132.6 million in initial capital, a no-cyanide grind-and-flotation flowsheet producing separate gold and antimony concentrates, and an after-tax NPV5% of US$42 million with a 17% IRR at US$3,300 gold and US$27,000 per tonne antimony. At a US$4,700 gold case, the PEA outlined an after-tax NPV5% of US$113 million and a 36% IRR.
Why the Second Metal Matters
Antimony changes the math at Auld Creek in two ways. The first is grade. Under the Company's gold equivalent formula, each 1% of antimony adds 2.15 g/t to the gold equivalent grade, which is why the 24.8% antimony in the September intercept lifted an 82.9 g/t gold result to 136.2 g/t AuEq. The second is market access. Antimony sits on critical minerals lists in the United States, Canada, the European Union and elsewhere, and a Western concentrate with documented origin is a different product from material that has to clear an export licence in Beijing.
That second point is not unique to RUA GOLD. It is the same logic behind the federal financing that has flowed to antimony projects in the United States, and it is why gold-antimony deposits have attracted attention out of proportion to their size. The difference in New Zealand is that the lever is permitting speed rather than government capital.
The geology also has history behind it. The Reefton Goldfield on New Zealand's South Island historically produced more than two million ounces of gold at grades the Company cites in the range of 9 to 50 g/t, according to its February 27, 2026 technical report. RUA GOLD holds more than 120,000 hectares of permits across the district and has described a longer-term vision of multiple underground sources feeding a central mill at Auld Creek, while also holding the Glamorgan project in the Hauraki District of the North Island.
How the Sector Compares
Perpetua Resources Corp. (Nasdaq: PPTA) is the benchmark every gold-antimony developer gets measured against. Its Stibnite Gold Project in Idaho moved through the federal FAST-41 permitting framework, secured final approvals in 2025 and is now in critical-path construction, supported by a US$2.9 billion Export-Import Bank loan. In August 2026, Perpetua reported new high-grade gold and antimony discoveries and a new gold-tungsten zone near its planned pits. Stibnite is a far larger project than Auld Creek, and it took years longer to permit.
Nova Minerals Corp (NYSE American: NVA) is attacking antimony from the processing end. On September 8, 2026, the company reported the arrival of roughly 500 tons of crushing, ore sorting, milling, flotation and refining equipment at Port MacKenzie, Alaska, for a planned antimony processing and refining facility funded by a US$43.4 million Department of War award under Title III of the Defense Production Act. Nova is targeting antimony trisulfide production in 2027 while advancing the broader Estelle gold project toward pre-feasibility.
Dakota Gold Corp. (NYSE American: DC) shares RUA GOLD's calendar but little else. Its Richmond Hill project in South Dakota's Homestake District is a large, low-grade oxide heap-leach deposit, with a July 2025 initial assessment mine plan averaging 0.566 g/t gold. In September 2026 the company reported column-leach recoveries of up to 92.0% and said its pre-feasibility study remains on track for the fourth quarter of 2026, the same quarter RUA GOLD is targeting.
i-80 Gold Corp. (NYSE: IAUX) is the reminder that high-grade underground projects do not always hold their schedules. In June 2026, the company reported infill results from its Archimedes Underground project in Nevada including 16.2 g/t gold over 56.4 metres and said development remained on schedule for first gold in the fourth quarter of 2026. In the same release, it pushed the timing of feasibility-level studies for its Granite Creek and Cove underground projects back by a quarter.
What the Comparison Shows
Set side by side, the group sorts neatly by what investors are being asked to underwrite. Perpetua offers scale and federal backing, but a multi-year build. Dakota Gold offers a long-life, low-grade deposit that depends on volume. Nova is betting on processing capacity ahead of its own mine. i-80 shows both the upside of high-grade underground ore and how easily technical timelines move.
RUA GOLD sits at the small, high-grade end of that spectrum. Its PEA describes a short-life starter mine rather than a district-scale operation, and the base-case economics are modest. What stands out is the combination of grade, a flowsheet that avoids cyanide, a second payable metal on a Western critical minerals list, and a permitting process with a defined time frame. Whether that combination holds up will be decided by the numbers still to come.
There are real risks. The PEA is preliminary in nature, includes Inferred resources that are too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them, and does not establish mineral reserves. Its upside case assumes a gold price above where the metal trades today. Acceptance into Fast-Track is not a permit, and the October application and December PFS are Company targets rather than certainties. Drill intercepts are downhole lengths, and the highlighted results are selected intervals that may not reflect the deposit as a whole.
What to Watch
Four markers will define the next six months at Auld Creek: the substantive Fast-Track application in October, assays from the 18 pending holes, the updated Mineral Resource estimate expected in the fourth quarter, and the pre-feasibility study targeted for December. Across the sector, the same question applies to every name above: which of these projects turns a permitting advantage into a funded, built mine first.