ARES Strategic Mining and Found Industries Collaborate on Critical Metals Recovery

Boston, MA / Juab County, Utah — May 12, 2026 — Leads & Copy —

Found Industries, via its Found Metals division, and ARES Strategic Mining Inc. (CSE: ARS) (OTC: ARSMF) (FRA: N8I1) have announced a Memorandum of Understanding to assess the recovery of gallium, germanium, and other strategic critical materials from ARES' Lost Sheep Mine in Utah.

The collaboration aims to combine a U.S. mineral asset with a domestic critical metals processing platform. This comes at a time when secure North American supply chains for semiconductors, defense systems, energy technologies, and advanced manufacturing are a priority.

ARES' Lost Sheep Mine, the only currently permitted fluorspar mine in the U.S., consists of 353 mining claims across approximately 5,982 acres. ARES recently announced a five-year Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contract from the U.S. Department of Defense through the Defense Logistics Agency, with an estimated initial award value of about $168.9 million and a total contract ceiling of up to $250 million, subject to future task orders.

Recent surveys cited in the MOU have identified gallium and germanium concentrations within the deposit, including reported gallium grades in the hundreds of parts per million. Preliminary assessments indicate that the Lost Sheep operations could support gallium production at industrial scales and potential recovery of associated critical metals, pending technical, economic, regulatory, and commercial validation.

Under the MOU, Found Metals will evaluate using its Direct Feedstock Extraction technology to recover critical metals from ARES-controlled feedstocks. The initial phase will focus on technical evaluation, feedstock assessment, process integration concepts, and preliminary analysis to determine a potential pathway for future piloting, scale-up, and joint commercialization. Early work is supported in part by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts through its InnovateMass program.

Peter Godart, President and CEO of Found Industries, said that ARES controls one of the domestic assets with the right combination of permitting position, critical mineral relevance, and multi-metal upside. He added that Found Metals was built to turn complex feedstocks into domestic critical metal production, and that the collaboration will help show how electrochemical refining can transform a U.S. mine into a critical materials platform.

James Walker, CEO of ARES Strategic Mining Inc., said Found brings the processing innovation that can expand the strategic value of Lost Sheep. He added that the opportunity to evaluate gallium, germanium, and other materials from the resource base could make Lost Sheep even more important to North American supply chains.

Gallium and germanium are used in semiconductors, fiber optics, and night vision applications. Fluorspar is essential to industries including synthetic materials, iron and steel, ceramics, glass and refining. The ability to evaluate all three within a single domestic resource base creates an opportunity for investors, policymakers and industrial partners.

The Found-ARES MOU suggests a shift in critical metals recovery where domestic resources, tailings, leachates, and byproduct streams can become strategic production platforms when paired with selective extraction technology.

Godart added that Found Metals is prioritizing partners who can move quickly, share representative feedstocks, define financeable projects, and help bring new domestic critical metal capacity online. He believes the collaboration with ARES has speed, differentiated process economics, and strategic supply relevance.

Found Industries is building technologies for energy and critical materials resilience. Through Found Metals, the company is developing a vertically integrated critical metals platform to convert complex feedstocks into strategically important metals. ARES Strategic Mining Inc. owns and operates the Lost Sheep Mine in western Utah and is focused on developing strategic mineral resources.

Source: ARES Strategic Mining Inc.