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 its 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 connects its mine to its processing plant, transitioning from construction and commissioning to active production.
James Walker, President and CEO 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 coming week, the 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.
The commencement of ore haulage and live-material processing represents a fundamental change in the nature of Ares' activities. The company has progressed through underground development, ventilation, mining infrastructure, construction of the Delta processing facility, installation of conveyors, electrical distribution and Motor Control Center systems, integrated commissioning of the Lumps Plant, and the accumulation of mined fluorspar ore at surface. The operation is now moving into the phase for which that infrastructure was constructed: moving mined material through an integrated domestic fluorspar production chain.
During this next stage, operators will progressively evaluate and refine plant performance, including ore feed rates, crushing performance, conveyor loading, drying performance, PLC/HMI sequences, and final product quality. The purpose 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 operating adjustments necessary for reliable, repeatable production.
The Lumps Plant is designed to manufacture metallurgical-grade fluorspar (metspar), used principally as a flux in steelmaking and other metallurgical applications. This milestone is strategically important as fluorspar remains on the 2025 U.S. List of Critical Minerals, and the U.S. was 100% net import reliant for fluorspar in 2025, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's 2026 Mineral Commodity Summaries. Ares believes this development represents tangible progress toward rebuilding a domestic industrial capability that has been largely absent for a generation.
Walker added: "Our shareholders have watched the underground workings being built, the processing plant rise from concrete foundations, the steel structures go up, the conveyors and electrical systems come online, and thousands of tons of ore accumulate at the mine. Now they can see that ore on trucks and entering the plant. We are mining a critical mineral in Utah and we are now processing that material in Utah. That is exactly what this Company was created to accomplish."
The Metallurgical Lumps Plant is the first major processing component of Ares' broader strategy, which also includes an adjacent Flotation Plant designed to manufacture higher-purity acid-grade fluorspar (acidspar). Acidspar typically contains at least approximately 97% calcium fluoride and is used in hydrofluoric acid production. Ares has previously announced commercial arrangements covering its anticipated initial metspar output, providing an established route to market as the plant progresses through ramp-up.
The company has also secured a multi-year Defense Logistics Agency framework for future supply of acid-grade fluorspar, reinforcing the strategic importance of establishing scalable domestic mining and processing capabilities. As the U.S. seeks to reduce reliance on foreign sources of critical minerals, Ares' progress at Lost Sheep represents a step toward securing a domestic supply chain for fluorspar.
