Spark starts tungsten exploration at Seridó

Spark Starts Tungsten Exploration at Seridó as Global Demand Surges

Twelve permits over 21,493 hectares in Brazil's historic tungsten district, granted in 2023 and 2024 ahead of a sixfold rise in tungsten prices, beside producing and past-producing tungsten, gold and bismuth mines

Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 16, 2026) - Spark Energy Minerals Inc. (CSE: SPRK) (OTC Pink: SPARF) (FSE: 8PC) ("Spark" or the "Company") announces that reconnaissance exploration focused on tungsten has commenced at its Seridó Project in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil (the "Project"): twelve exploration permits covering 21,492.74 hectares (about 215 km²) in the district that has supplied most of Brazil's tungsten since the Second World War. Geologists are mapping the marble and calc-silicate horizons that host scheelite, the district's tungsten ore mineral, and sampling rock and stream sediment across five regional target areas (Figure 1). The Arapaima Project in Minas Gerais, which includes the Cruzeta and Boa Vista gallium and rare earth element discoveries, remains the Company's principal focus.

"Tungsten has become a strategic metal, and the world is looking for supply outside China," said Dr. Fernando Tallarico, Chief Executive Officer of Spark Energy Minerals Inc. "The Seridó district of Rio Grande do Norte has produced scheelite for more than eighty years and hosts the largest scheelite mine in South America. Spark secured 21,500 hectares on the rocks that host those mines before tungsten prices took off, and our geologists are now in the field. Tungsten adds a third critical mineral to Spark's portfolio, alongside gallium and rare earths at Arapaima, in a district with a proven record."

Highlights

Tungsten market context. About 60% of the metal goes into cemented carbides, the hard material in cutting, drilling, mining, and construction tools; the rest goes into specialty steels, turbine and armor alloys, electrical components, and chemicals. China min