Ionic Mineral Technologies, North America's vertically integrated answer for rare earth and critical mineral independence today announced two major advancements for its flagship Silicon Ridge project in Utah, underscoring its scale and development potential.
The Company has expanded its position with the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration ("SITLA") by approximately 4,100 additional acres, consolidating its strategic land package to roughly 13,000 contiguous acres.
This expansion is strategically significant, as it includes Section 21 (Township 7 South, Range 1 West), which encompasses the Soldier Pass Road alignment. Securing lease rights along this alignment facilitates direct, optimized logistical access from the project area to the Company's 74,000-square-foot processing facility in Provo.
Step-Out Drilling Confirms System Scale and Continuity
Concurrently, Ionic MT has successfully completed a strategic step-out drilling program conducted at the direction of the independent Qualified Person (QP) overseeing the Company's maiden Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA). The program was designed to test the lateral extent of the mineralized clay system and provide the data necessary to expand the geological model for the PEA.
Utilizing air track rigs, drilling was limited to a shallow 100-foot depth for this phase. Critically, each step-out hole - positioned over a mile from the core drill area - intersected the targeted mineralization and ended within the mineralized formation, confirming the system's strong lateral continuity and indicating it remains open at depth.
"Consolidating 13,000 acres and confirming continuous mineralization across a 1,400-acre footprint reinforces that Silicon Ridge has the potential to be one of North America's most significant and scalable critical mineral assets," said Andre Zeitoun, CEO and Founder of Ionic Mineral Technologies. "Ending all step-out holes in mineralization at only 100 feet depth gives us tremendous confidence in the system's size and continuity. The upcoming Phase 1 PEA will provide our first formal economic study, but the demonstrated scale clearly points to a district with immense potential for further definition and growth."
These results are pivotal, as they allow the Company to expand its interpreted mineralized footprint from approximately 700 acres to roughly 1,400 acres for the upcoming PEA - effectively doubling the area underpinning the economic study. This expanded footprint within the broader 13,000-acre district provides key perimeter control and establishes a clear pathway for a follow-up drill campaign to test the full vertical and lateral extent of the resource.
A Large-Scale, Polymetallic "IAC-Plus" Resource
Silicon Ridge represents a major domestic source for 16 recoverable critical elements. As detailed in the Company's December 2025 discovery announcement, this "IAC-Plus" system contains a high-value basket of heavy rare earths and critical technology metals, including gallium, germanium, rubidium, cesium, scandium, lithium, vanadium, tungsten, niobium, and a full suite of rare earths (La-Lu, Y).
A Single Feedstock for Sovereign Supply Chains
Silicon Ridge's polymetallic "IAC-Plus" clay is the primary feedstock for Ionic MT's vertically integrated production, designed to bypass complex, high-cost hard-rock processing:
- Critical Minerals & Rare Earths: A secure, domestic source for materials currently imported almost entirely from abroad.
- IonAl™ Alumina: A strategic domestic source of metallurgical & specialty grade alumina for industrial applications.
- Ionisil™ Nano-Silicon: A proprietary, high-performance anode material to improve Lithium-ion battery energy density by 30-40%.