The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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Ucore Rare Metals Inc. March 5 said it plans to be producing rare earth elements at its Ketchikan, Alaska Strategic Metals Complex, or Alaska SMC, in 2020. The exploration turned innovation company said it is now entering the second phase of due diligence for the Alaska SMC, a facility that will utilize molecular recognition technology to separate rare earths and produce individual REE oxides used in many high-tech applications. As part of its due diligence, Ucore is now...
Seven days of near-continuous rain did nothing to dampen the mood at the recently concluded Cordilleran Roundup Convention in Vancouver. The event was buoyed by a realistic optimism we have not seen in over five years. This change from half-empty to half-full glasses is due to a number of things including strong commodities prices, increasing global demand for metals and current or looming supply shortfalls in many of the metals produced by this industry. The event was... Full story
Before color televisions hit the markets in the 1960s, rare earths where a curious group of elements that had the distinction of occupying their own separate section at the bottom of the periodic table but had very few practical applications. Over the ensuing 50 years, however, this group of 15 lanthanides plus yttrium and scandium have been discovered to possess unique properties that make them key ingredients in a wide range of modern products such as terabyte hard-drives...
After investigating locations across the United States to host its first Strategic Metals Complex, or SMC, Ucore Rare Metals Inc. has decided that a Southeast Alaska town with a Pacific Rim port is the ideal place to build the cutting-edge rare earths processing facility. "Engineering and economic studies have confirmed that Ketchikan is our preferred location to construct our first strategic and critical metals separation facility," said Ucore Vice President of Operations...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. Dec. 22 said President Donald Trump's executive order to ensure reliable supplies of critical minerals is a fundamental policy shift that is important to the company and its Bokan Mountain rare earth elements project in Southeast Alaska. The executive order signed by Trump on Dec. 20 instructs federal agencies to identify and publish a list of critical minerals, and develop a strategy to reduce the United States' reliance on other countries to supply...
The Trump Administration's focus on securing domestic sources of critical minerals could help re-invigorate mineral exploration and mine development in Alaska. At least 15 of the 23 critical minerals identified by the U.S. Geological Survey – antimony, barite, beryllium, cobalt, fluorspar, gallium, germanium, graphite, indium, platinum group elements, rare earth elements, rhenium, tantalum, tellurium, tin and vanadium – are found across the Far North state. Working alo... Full story
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. July 31 announced that it has entered into an agreement to sell SuperLig-One to Orca Holdings LLC and then lease back the rare earth separation pilot plant from Orca, a Ketchikan, Alaska-based enterprise controlled by Ucore advisory board member Randy Johnson. Under the terms of the agreement, Orca will pay Ucore of US$2 million for SuperLig-One and then lease the plant back to Ucore over a 3-year term at an annual lease rate of 15 percent. At the option...
Exploration companies familiar with Alaska already know the Far North State is great place to look for critical minerals such as rare earth elements, platinum group metals, cobalt and tin. A new report published by the U.S. Geological Survey, however, indicates that Alaska may be richer in these and other minerals vital to the United States than previously realized. Working alongside the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys, USGS developed a new geospatial tool... Full story
With immense sadness, Ucore Rare Metals Inc. Aug. 2 reported the sudden passing of COO Ken Collison, a mining engineer highly regarded both professionally and personally. "Ken was a towering figure in the mine engineering industry," said Ucore President and CEO Jim McKenzie. "His outstanding successes at Ucore, Coeur Alaska, Crandon Mining, and Blue Pearl Mining/Thompson Creek speak to the diversity of his accomplishments in developing best-of-breed mining and minerals processing facilities." As COO of Blue Pearl... Full story
Many were skeptical of Ucore Rare Metals Inc.’s claims that it had identified a technology that would revolutionize the way the notoriously tightly interlocked rare earth elements are separated. Less than two years later, however, the mineral explorer turned innovator has quieted some of this doubt by separating the most critical rare earth – dysprosium – from a solution derived from its Bokan Mountain REE project in Southeast Alaska. Ucore achieved this feat with the help...
As tangible buoyancy returns to the mining industry, I began to wonder if any of the multitude of forecasters had actually predicted the recent return of stronger metals prices. Since most "forecasters" are actually "hindsighters," I was drawn to a November 2013 summary of gold mines by Roy Sebag of Natural Resource Holdings. The summary, entitled "Global Gold Mines & Deposits 2013 Ranking," indicated that we were nearing peak gold production because the total in-situ ounces...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. Sept. 26 said an independent third-party review has confirmed previously reported operational success of the SuperLig-One pilot plant near Salt Lake City, Utah. Under the observation of Ed Bentzen of Resource Development Inc., a pregnant leach solution from the Bokan Dotson-Ridge project in Southeast Alaska was submitted to the SuperLig-One purification circuit. Under Bentzen's direction, output samples from the circuit, containing purified dysprosium, were then analyzed by both an independent...
While junior miners have not fully healed from the wounds inflicted by the brutal bear market of the recent past, the Canadian branch of PricewaterhouseCoopers sees improved vital signs for the sector. "It's too early to call it a recovery, but there might be light at the end of the tunnel for the Canadian junior mining sector" PWC wrote in "Signs of Life", its 2016 junior mine report. One such promising sign is that the market cap of top 100 junior mining companies on the TSX... Full story
In its quest to discover a more economic and environmentally sound way to separate the 16 rare earth elements found at its Bokan Mountain project in Southeast Alaska, Ucore Rare Metals has helped pioneer a new technology that could transform the way not only rare earths but an entire suite of strategic metals are processed in the United States and around the globe. Over the past two years, this mineral explorer turned innovator has taken the unproven concept of using... Full story
Mining's contribution to Alaska's economy starts with the hefty paychecks being issued to the some 4,350 miners that work in the state, according to recent study completed by the Alaska Miners Association and McDowell Group. The report, "The economic benefits of Alaska's mining industry," found that the average miner working in Alaska during 2016 received a whopping US$108,000 for the year, about double the average income across all sectors in the state. That is nearly US$470... Full story
The mining company that’s been working Southeast Alaska’s rare earths project is enthusiastic about President-elect Donald Trump’s support for an independent U.S. strategic metals industry, which Ucore Rare Metals’ top executive says will favorably impact its plans for a domestic Strategic Metals Complex. According to Jim McKenzie, president and CEO of Ucore, China controls more than 90 percent of the global mining and production of rare earths ore and exhibits “near complete control over each subsequent stage of the suppl...
According to the United States Geological Survey’s annual report, “Mineral Commodity Summaries 2017,” the value of non-fuel minerals produced in the United States and Alaska during 2016 remained at similar levels to 2015. Alaska mines produced roughly US$3.09 billion worth of minerals, excluding petroleum and coal, marking the seventh year straight that output from Alaska mines have topped US$3 billion. Gold and zinc account for roughly 80 percent of Alaska’s mineral productio...
A Swiss investment fund with ties to Russia-born billionaire Vladimir Iorich has put in a bid to buy the shuttered Mountain Pass rare earth element mine in California, raising red flags for U.S. lawmakers concerned about the United States’ dependence on foreign countries for REEs and other metals necessary to maintain the U.S. military’s high-tech arsenal. To help promote domestic production of these strategic metals and block foreign firms from buying rare earth mines on U.S....
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. March 13 reported that it has secured an option to acquire the outstanding shares of IBC Advanced Technologies, a company that has been instrumental in designing and developing a rare earth separation process for Ucore. Ucore paid US$650,000 to enter the two-year option. Under the terms of the agreement, Ucore will have the right to purchase the outstanding shares of IBC for US$10 million cash and 10 million Ucore units, which includes one Ucore share and half of a purchase warrant. The agreement also...
With the opening late last month of a public comment period for the environmental impact statement on the proposed Ambler Mining District Industrial Access Project, I am cautiously optimistic that this time, Sisyphus will get the boulder up the hill. As a lowly graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks back in 1979, I helped a crew from Anaconda Minerals color township-size blocks on a huge paper map of the Brooks Range. At the time, Anaconda and numerous other...
Buried deep in a US$1.1 trillion spending bill that funds the United States government through the end of September is around US$20 million that could bolster Ucore Rare Metals' strategy to recover rare earth elements from non-traditional sources in the United States and clean up waste from historic uranium mining on the company's Bokan Mountain property in Alaska. "The U.S. government's dedication of over US$20 million in 2017 to projects which are directly aligned with...
A former high ranking United States Army executive charged with acquiring and developing world-class equipment for U.S. soldiers under the Obama and Bush administrations warns that the lack of a domestic source for rare earth elements, or REEs, will be the Achilles heel of American military superiority. "Every one of the current and next round of super and unimaginable US weapons relies on REEs, an exotic assortment of 17 metals and elements, that are neither mined nor...
Alaska is rich in mineral potential but poor in the critical infrastructure needed to fully realize this potential, that was the message Alaska Division of Geological and Geological Surveys Director Steve Masterman delivered to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. During a March 30 hearing, Masterman informed member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that Alaska could be the answer to the United States growing dependence on foreign suppliers for minerals....
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. Feb. 8 reported that it has completed the initial stage of detailed engineering for a platinum group metals - rhodium, palladium and platinum - phase of its U.S. strategic metals complex. Being developed as a joint venture between Ucore and IBC Advanced Technologies, the strategic metals complex is a planned industrial scale version of the SuperLig One pilot plant the partners developed to separate the rare earths found at the Bokan Mountain project in...
Ucore Rare Metals Inc. Nov. 22 announced the appointment of Patrick Ryan as chairman of its board of directors. He is the founder of Neocon International, a Nova Scotia-based plastics manufacturing company that serves as a tier one supplier to leading automotive enterprises such as Toyota, Nissan and General Motors. Since Neocon's inception in 1993, Ryan has been the company's strategic architect, responsible for sales growth and capital acquisitions, while directing a team of research and development engineers and promoting...
