I owned Niocorp (sold on spike earlier in the year.) I like niobium and scandium
If you were say an aircraft or auto supplier that could potentially use 100s of tonnes of scandium oxide why would you go to Niocorp (low production, byproduct) vs a scale-able primary mine? The only reason I can think of is because it is in America. SCY is tied to scandium and Nio(niobium)corp is about niobium. Niobium is already a multi billion industry I`d rather invest in another soon to be multi-billion industry via a basket of scandium juniors.
Say I wanted the best X in the world I dont go to the 3rd or 4rth ranked player.
At this point it probably goes like this for rankings in terms of potential viable long term scandium supply:
CLQ - highest grade, Friedland name, very advanced stage, good promotion.
SCY - most advanced project, offtake in place, deposit is essentially equivalent to Syerston. Arguing which is better when both are awesome and have high grade pockets is sort of irrelevant at this stage with already attractive economics.
Metallica- good deposit, farther back in terms of develop train.
Niocorp- Niobium deposit. Scandium is super low grade byproduct. Niobium is used in steel making and the steel and iron market is collapsing, Niocorp has external market risk and huge capex whereas a pure scandium junior has relatively none.
Nio is also low on the tonnage scale and their niobium is not correlated with scandium in their deposit so the economics might lead them in two different directions.
As a big user it makes sense that you`d pick a leading horse. All this is IMO but seems very logical. The big guys will do their due diligence and might even diversify across suppliers for all we know.
Anyway my last post for a bit, going placer mining. Good luck everyone.
