Niocorp Developments Ltd (NB)

[PutzMueler]

This was posted by Nuthouse on SH.
Any comments?

NioCorp + Ucore SuperLig separation technology?
Greetings Niocorp investors,

Full disclosure, i'm a Ucore investor. It's exciting to hear Niocorp has produced the first sample of scandium, as the press release states:

"The sample was produced recently during the on-going bench testing and optimization program of the company’s scandium recovery operations at SGS in Lakefield, Ontario."

Do any of you folks know what technology was used for this 'bench testing'? Because I have my speculation that it may be Ucore-IBC's MRT 'SuperLig' separation process. I could be wrong, but the timing definitely adds up, as Ucore has announced just before this that they have accomplished successful separation & completion of Scandium at Pilot Scale at over 99.9+% purity with SuperLig One (which, as the press release also suggests, both Ucore and Niocorp would be at the precursor to commercial scale). This is my theory.

Niocorp's news and Ucore's news are in sync with separation stages, and with Ucore's claim of dramatically cutting opex of separations I would find it unusual and lacking due diligence to not have at least tried SuperLig technology at all. It's been a battle to convince everyone that SuperLig technology is the best available technology for scandium separation (among other metals).

I also find it suspicious that Niocorp hasn't disclosed what bench scale technology they tried out which was at a pre-commercial stage. It seems like too much of a coincidence to not be a soon-to-be-announced partnership. Perhaps they are just waiting for something.

Regardless if this theory of mine is true or not, I'm definitely happy for any mining and rare earth company that can operate outside of China, especially in North America. We should look to cut our dependence on them as much as possible, imho.

And hey, I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Feedback is welcome