Niocorp Developments Ltd (NB)

[Middleborder]

Thank you Boilermaker: Vertical integration & government involvment

This has previously been posted I think; From IBCs website

https://ibcadvancedalloys.com/2018/10/08/ibc-and-niocorp-announce-successful-production-of-aluminum-scandium-master-alloy/

" The master alloy was produced at the Ames Laboratory, a U.S. government-owned, contractor-operated national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), located in Ames Iowa.
(...Snip...)
NioCorp and IBC intend to utilize the master alloy from this program to further the companies’ ongoing efforts to develop specialty scandium-containing alloys and/or prototype products for potential commercial use. The two companies are operating under a joint development agreement to investigate and develop applications for scandium-containing materials for a range of downstream markets. NioCorp commercially purchased the scandium used to create the master alloy at the Ames Lab’s Materials Preparation Center."

“Both IBC and NioCorp wish to thank the great team at the Ames Laboratory, and the U.S. Department of Energy, for their assistance to our teams in successfully producing this master alloy,” said Mark A. Smith, CEO and Executive Chair of NioCorp and Chairman of the Board of IBC. “This is almost certainly the first aluminum-scandium master alloy made in the United States in some years. We look forward to the possibilities presented by the establishment of a domestic U.S. production capacity for aluminum-scandium master alloys that utilize scandium mined and purified in the U.S.”
-------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------
Humm.
IBC’s has production facilities in Indiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Missouri.

New Madrid, Missouri

"Our New Madrid facility casts of a wide variety of copper alloys. Located on a 2.4-hectare (6.0 acres) site 265 kilometers (165 miles) south of St. Louis, Missouri, it has two furnaces and is capable of producing billets in a range of sizes and compositions. This facility is underutilized and, as a result, there is room for significant expansion of plant operations at this location should economic conditions and business plans call for such expansion."

Easy to convert over to Scandium alloy billets?

----------------------------------------------------

The only information I have here is from IBC's website. Its interesting information It reinforces your post.

If financing for the mine, why not finance for a merger as well and get it all done at the same time? Depends on financing source I suppose. Just idle speculation.

That said Lets hope and can start Elk Creek site prepartion after the snow melts in April!