u/expatcoder

Thought it would be good to start a discussion on where we stand here in Spring 2026 going into the Trump - Xi meeting this week (assuming that's still going ahead as planned).

The sector as a whole seems to be in a holding pattern, with only the Big 3 (MP, USAR, and UUUU) having made, and held, significant gains since the March 30 lows that hammered minerals across the board (could add CRML and UAMY here as well, if there are other companies up significantly since March 30th, please share, would be nice to know of other companies on the rise).

The trend then seems to be that the largest players in the space are yielding outsized returns while the smaller players tread water. Why is that? Well, to be short, balance sheet size matters. None of the Big 3 are short on cash or have to dilute shareholders to continue to progress operations, whereas the smaller players are forced into capital raises since Project Vault, operation Warp Speed, and other nice sounding, wow-such-big-numbers, initiatives are in reality all talk at this point (or as they say in the American west, "All hat and no cattle").

Which gets us to the next question: where is the money? The rhetoric sounds amazing, but financing has come in at best a trickle so far for every company excepting the chosen winners (e.g. MP, LAC, Trilogy Metals, and USAR) which get immediate massive funding since the administration can circumvent all of the bueraucratic red tape and simply open up the floodgates.

Moving forward, for minerals to rebound, we're going to either need to see smaller players in the space start to finally land financing deals of their own (that don't involve bankrupting existing shareholders; read: tanking the share price), or China plays hard ball with the US and tightens minerals export restrictions.

Certainly progress is being made, it's just rather slow given the supposed urgency to support the "critical" minerals sector and reduce reliance on China for these valuable resources.

Feel free to share your thoughts on where we're at and where we're going. Have a feeling the next 6 months are going to be crucial for many players in the space moving forward, especially those lacking funds to advance their projects.

Peter Manuel (Ucore CFO) was the presenter at the virtual investers shareholder call, which is fine, nice to see new faces at the company, but we haven't seen the CEO Pat Ryan in months now.

Anyone know what's going on and/or why he's been in the background? Maybe he's been travelling/deal making and focusing less on public relations?

Anyway, would be good to see the boss in front of the camera again, his steady straightforward manner always seems to give UURAF a lift, and we could use one to break us out of the $3/$4 range we've been pinned to since March.

Report seemed pretty positive overall, but the market clearly thinks otherwise.

What do we think, temporary selloff, rebound next week, or somehow downtrend from here while the overall markets and minerals sector rally?

Other shareholders can chime in here, but I'd just like to share my thoughts on ARSMF's downward price action, and management's roll in these apparently (given the company's excellent storyline) surprising events.

First of all, the broader markets, and the minerals sector in particular, have been on fire over the past few weeks, so part of what we're seeing here in Ares selling off is simply former investors chasing higher returns elsewhere.

That's fine, it's simply how markets work; however, why would an investor sell a sure thing like Ares? The company landed the $250,000,000 USD department of defense contract; has demand for both Metspar and Flourspar that far exceeds capacity, and is apparently on the verge of production, what gives?

Production, or the lack thereof, is the main culprit that's causing investors to jump ship (outside of aforementioned market forces). Both the lumps plant and flotation plant components have been on site since at least December, 2024. So, 18 months have passed and neither the lumps plant nor flotation plant are finished. Apparently the lumps plant is "95%" complete, but then in your recent RCTV interview you state that production is only "a few months away".

Even the investor pack states that production is slated to begin in 2025, and anyone who searches through this subreddit can find references to investors asking about production "just around the corner" dating back several years.

What shareholders need is direct, honest communication. Not vague timelines, but rather concrete estimates grounded in reality that, if not met, there's a viable explanation for instead of just pushing the goalposts further out with, "[hang in there folks] just a few [more] months away [and zero explanation why]".

Moving forward, what is the real status of the lumps plant and when will the first Metspar shipments be going out? Or will there not be any Metspar shipments this year and the focus will be entirely on Acidspar? Furthermore, has "expedited" work on the flotation work begun yet; if so, when can we expect the first test runs? Where is Bob Li in all of this? We know he's starting his own Flourspar venture (presumably in SE Asia), are he and his crew even in the United States right now?

These are the kinds of details shareholders need to know about.

Lastly, while things like investor relations and nasdaq uplisting are certainly great ideas, spending, as you yourself have admitted, all your CEO time on these tasks when clearly the very thing that the company needs to prevent the share price from dropping through the floor, is production, it's a questionable use of executive time to say the least. In your shoes I'd have aleady been on a plane to Utah and raising hell on the job site to get into production ASAP. But that's just me, one in a long line of investors who's paid you handsomely to get Ares this far, but not far enough -- let's go, James, get on your bike son (translation: hurry up!)

As I understand it Ares' only offtake partner is the US Department of Defense (which is obviously a huge deal), specifically for Acidspar.

James Walker has talked about the lumps plant and Metspar (metallurgical grade Flourspar) as a potential revenue source, but I don't recall seeing any MOUs or binding agreements with offtake partners on this front. Furthermore, the hundreds of tons of stockpiled ore on site James explicitly mentioned being for Acidspar production (which makes sense since that's where the real value proposition is, guaranteed orders from the DoD at an attractive unit cost).

So the question is, the "95%" complete lumps plant serves what purpose exactly? In the near term I assume none whatsoever, unless it will be used as a preprocessor for the flotation plant to process Acidspar.

We'll probably get an update from James relatively soon given the PR cadence of late, but James' RCTV quote that production is actually only "a few months away" in response to the interviewers statement that production will begin at the end of the year, could very well be more ambiguous non-commital timelines that we've all grown accustomed to.

In the near term the only positive catalyst I see is news around how the investor relations team is spending its time perusing reddit -- joking, joking, nasdaq uplisting, that's probably what we have to look out for while playing the production waiting game (well, demonstrable progress on the flotation plant would great to see as well).

;tl;dr production by EoY, anytime sooner (for Metspar or Acidspar) would be a pleasant surprise, but not counting on it.

Incredible, not sure what the rationale is for the ruling, we'll find out in a couple of hours when the announcement is replaced with the news release.

Bad news for domestic graphite producers, as if things weren't terrible enough already with the middle east conflict and selling pressure hammering away at the critical minerals sector.

Well, guess we'll bottom out at some point -- the thesis still holds, just with less support in the near term given this ruling...