Ares Strategic Mining Inc. (CSE: ARS) (OTCQX: ARSMF) (FRA: N8I1) has announced that fluorspar ore mined from its Lost Sheep Mine in Utah is now being transported by truck to the company's processing facility in Delta, Utah, where the material has begun entering the Metallurgical Lumps Plant for processing. This marks a significant operational milestone, as the company has connected its mine to its processing plant, transitioning from an infrastructure-development program to an operating mining and processing business.
The arrival and feeding of mined Lost Sheep ore into the plant represents one of the most significant operational milestones achieved by Ares to date. Following years of mine development, engineering, construction, equipment installation, and systems commissioning, the company has now connected the two principal components of its operation: ore is being extracted from the Lost Sheep Mine, transported to Delta, and introduced into the processing plant. Over the coming week, Ares' operations team will use increasing quantities of actual mined material to tune and optimize the Lumps Plant around the specific physical and processing characteristics of Lost Sheep ore. This live-material ramp-up phase is intended to progressively refine plant settings and operating parameters before moving toward sustained production rates.
James Walker, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ares Strategic Mining, commented: "There is an enormous difference between constructing and commissioning a plant and actually seeing trucks of your own ore arriving and that material entering the processing circuit. We have now connected the mine to the plant. This is the physical supply chain we have spent years building. Over the next week, our engineers and operators will use real Lost Sheep material to fine-tune the plant and understand exactly how the ore behaves through each stage of the process. We can optimize around the material we are actually mining rather than theoretical feed characteristics. Every truckload gives our team more operating information and takes us another step toward establishing consistent production."
During this next stage, the company's operators will progressively evaluate and refine plant performance, including ore feed rates and consistency; crushing performance and product sizing; conveyor loading and material transfer; drying performance and operating parameters; PLC, HMI, alarm and automated operating sequences; material flow through the complete plant circuit; and final product characteristics and quality. The purpose of this stage is not simply to demonstrate that individual pieces of equipment operate, but to establish how the complete facility performs when processing representative Lost Sheep ore continuously and to make the operating adjustments necessary for reliable, repeatable production.
The company's Lumps Plant has been designed with substantial capacity to allow for further potential future production. The plant is designed to manufacture metallurgical-grade fluorspar ("metspar"), which is used principally as a flux in steelmaking and other metallurgical applications. The timing of Ares' operational ramp-up comes against a strategically important backdrop for U.S. mineral security. Fluorspar remains on the 2025 U.S. List of Critical Minerals, reflecting its importance to the American economy and national security and the vulnerability of its supply chain. According to the U.S. Geological Survey's 2026 Mineral Commodity Summaries, the United States was 100% net import reliant for fluorspar in 2025, excluding Government stockpile sales, and significant U.S. fluorspar mine production had not been reported for decades.
Against that backdrop, Ares believes the commencement of mine-to-plant operations at Lost Sheep represents more than an important company milestone: it represents tangible progress toward rebuilding a domestic industrial capability that has been largely absent from the United States for a generation. The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency's Strategic Materials organization is responsible for the National Defense Stockpile and identifies the development and qualification of domestic sources of strategic materials as part of its mission. Ares has separately secured a multi-year Defense Logistics Agency framework for the future supply of acid-grade fluorspar, further reinforcing the strategic importance of establishing scalable domestic mining and processing capabilities.
The Metallurgical Lumps Plant represents the first major processing component of Ares' broader development strategy. Material processed through the Lumps Plant is intended to establish Ares' production of metallurgical-grade fluorspar for industrial markets. The infrastructure also forms part of the company's broader Delta processing platform, where Ares is advancing its adjacent Flotation Plant, designed to manufacture higher-purity acid-grade fluorspar ("acidspar"). Acidspar typically contains at least approximately 97% calcium fluoride and is the principal mineral feedstock used in hydrofluoric acid production, from which a broad range of fluorine-based industrial materials are derived.
Ares' strategy is therefore designed to address two distinct markets: near-term production of metallurgical fluorspar through the Lumps Plant and the subsequent development of high-purity acidspar production through the Flotation Plant. The company believes operating both facilities alongside its own domestic mining operation can provide increased control across extraction, processing, product quality, and delivery while establishing a scalable platform capable of serving U.S. industrial and strategic-material customers.
Ares has previously announced commercial arrangements covering its anticipated initial metspar output, providing the company with an established route to market as the Lumps Plant progresses through ramp-up and toward sustained production. The company's immediate operational priority is to use the current live-material campaign to optimize plant performance, progressively increase ore feed, assess finished product specifications, and establish repeatable operating parameters. Additional operational updates will be provided as the plant advances through the live-feed ramp-up program.
