Ucore Switches Plan from Alaska to Louisiana
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By Shane Lasley, North of 60 Mining News With $10 million in economic incentives and quicker permitting of already established industrial sites on the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana has lured Ucore Rare Metals Inc. and its proprietary rare earths separation technology away from Alaska. In 2020, Ucore set a plan in motion to begin producing individual rare earth elements in Alaska by 2023. The idea was to install its RapidSX rare earths separation technology in an Alaska Strategic Metals Complex, a commercial-scale rare earths separation and purification plant to be built at the Southeast Alaska port town of Ketchikan. The Alaska SMC was to be the first of potentially several strategic metal complexes Ucore plans to develop to help supply the rapidly growing demand for rare earths and other critical minerals being driven largely by the auto sector’s transition to electric mobility. Ucore’s departure is a major hit to Alaska’s critical minerals portfolio. “Over the last several years, Ucore has been diligently working to establish its first SMC,” said Ucore Rare Metals Chairman and CEO Pat Ryan. “At the beginning of this year, we finalized two fundamental tenets. One, the emerging worldwide demand for Western rare earth
oxides will far exceed the capacity of just one SMC. Two, the only way to successfully meet the required production timelines of our prospective partners will be to build the first SMC within an established facility – which is just not currently possible with our original plans in Southeast Alaska.” Ucore’s shift to Louisiana began with discussions with state officials that quickly advanced to a trip to assess 10 existing facilities that could provide the company a head start on developing a Louisiana SMC compared to building one from scratch in Alaska. “It became quickly apparent that Louisiana had the existing infrastructure to support a new processing facility, such as ours, with an established chemical industry workforce, local access to universities and community college programs, chemicals and other raw materials, low energy rates, and several of North America’s largest shipping ports,” said Ucore Rare Metals COO Mike Schrider. The Gulf Coast state clinched a deal for Ucore’s proposed $55 million Louisiana SMC with an initial $9.6 million economic incentive package to be administered through Louisiana Economic Development over 10 years.
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