Producer
ARES Strategic Mining Inc.
U.S. startup restarting domestic fluorspar production at Lost Sheep Mine, Delta County, Utah. Awarded $168.9M initial / $250M ceiling 5-year IDIQ contract by Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA, 2024) to supply acid-grade fluorspar for defense applications including enriched uranium, aluminum, lithium-ion batteries, and refrigerants. First domestic U.S. fluorspar production in decades; projected 45,400-54,500 tpa (2026 startup).
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Domestic US Acid-Grade Fluorspar (Startup)
100%
Intelligence
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Did you know2023
The DLA contract with ARES Strategic Mining explicitly names four end-use applications for domestic fluorspar: enriched uranium (nuclear fuel), aluminum production (industrial metal), lithium-ion batteries (EV and energy storage), and refrigerants (HVAC). These four applications span national defense (uranium for nuclear weapons and naval reactors), clean energy transition (EV batteries), industrial manufacturing (aluminum), and climate control infrastructure (refrigerants). The Pentagon's contracting rationale publicly acknowledges that a single mineral -- fluorspar -- creates a shared supply chain vulnerability across nuclear, EV, industrial, and HVAC sectors simultaneously. The US government has formally mapped the cross-sector dependency that most procurement teams in each of those industries have not mapped for themselves.
Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) ↗Origin2023
ARES Strategic Mining is a US startup attempting to restart domestic fluorspar mining at the Lost Sheep Mine in Delta County, Utah -- a deposit known since at least the mid-20th century but shuttered as cheaper Chinese and Mexican fluorspar made US production uneconomical. The 2024 DLA contract ($168.9M initial, $250M ceiling, 5-year IDIQ) is the direct result of the US Department of Defense formally designating fluorspar a critical mineral vulnerability -- the same policy logic that drove the CHIPS Act for semiconductors and the Inflation Reduction Act for battery minerals. ARES is not yet in production; 2026 startup is the projection. Between 2024 and 2026, the US has contracted for domestic fluorspar supply that does not yet exist, from a startup company operating in a Utah county better known for magnesium production than fluorite mining. If ARES fails to reach production on schedule, the DLA contract is unfulfilled and the DoD remains dependent on non-domestic fluorspar supply for the defense applications explicitly listed in the contract.
ARES Strategic Mining Inc. ↗Concentration2024
ARES Strategic Mining received a $168.9M initial contract (up to $250M, 5-year IDIQ) from the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) in 2024 to restart U.S. fluorspar production — the first domestic supply in decades. The contract explicitly cites end-uses including enriched uranium, lithium-ion batteries, aluminum production, and refrigerants. This is DoD's formal acknowledgment that fluorspar is a strategic national security vulnerability on par with rare earths.
The Northern Miner ↗