Kerem Usenmez

Volta Metals to Release First Gallium Resource in North America

• Top takeaway The CEO's central call is that the upcoming resource update, expected in October 2026, will include gallium — which he believes would be the first such resource in North America and possibly globally.
• He estimates the gallium should add at least 25% to the overall project's value, with a firmer answer due in October 2026.
• He argues the East-West separation of supply chains ("de-globalization") will continue regardless of which governments are in power, pointing to roughly 12 companies building processing facilities in the US that will need feed.
• He says companies in the US and Canada have been calling him because they cannot source gallium under China's export restrictions, and confirms he is in conversations he declines to detail.
• He pushes back on critics who call critical metals a "flavor of the month", contending Springer can reach production faster than other projects even without a feasibility study because of its location and existing infrastructure.

Volta Metals expects its October resource update to publish North America's first gallium resource at the Springer rare earth project in Ontario. Fresh drill results keep returning high-grade rare earth and gallium mineralization that remains open, which the CEO says points to a larger system. Chinese export restrictions have cut North American companies off from gallium, which the CEO argues makes domestic supply a durable, policy-driven theme. Unmodeled gallium could add at least 25% to project value, and metallurgical tests recovered up to 88% of rare earths, per the CEO. Milestones ahead: two more drill results, a gallium-inclusive resource update, November metallurgy, then a PEA (Preliminary Economic Assessment — an early economics study) in Q1 2027.

Volta Metals Drills Unprecedented 688m of Continuous Gallium and Rare Earths

• Top takeaway He argues the 688-metre intercept, the positive recovery work and the growing resource feed into a PEA later in 2026 that he expects to move the company into a different level.
• He attributes the project's ability to advance to the site's clean mineralogy and geology, and calls this drill intercept and its mineralization unusually special.
• On industry and financing conditions, he says the company is de-risking one step at a time with some steps running in parallel, and that each de-risking step is where value is unlocked and outside interest should grow.
• He frames gallium as a strategic differentiator: because China controls production and the Western supply chain is being built out, he argues being first to a Canadian gallium resource will be important.
• He says the sequencing of the resource update against the PEA depends on laboratory assay turnaround, and that the resource may be announced earlier or together with the PEA.

Volta Metals' Springer project in Ontario returned 688 metres of continuous gallium and rare earths, among the widest carbonatite intercepts, the CEO says. Gallium — used in new generation semiconductors for its fast electrical response — comes almost entirely from China, leaving Western buyers scrambling for supply. Drilling shows what is in the ground, metallurgical testing shows what you can actually recover and what it earns, and both landed within a week. A PEA (Preliminary Economic Assessment — an early look at whether a project can pay off) and a gallium resource are both due in 2026. The CEO ranks Springer in North America's top ten for carbonatite rare earths, with road, power and proximity to Sudbury already in place.