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by Will Purcell
The diamond and specialty minerals stocks box score for Wednesday was a weak 90-105-115 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose fractionally to 617. Lucara Diamond Corp. (LUC) closed unchanged at 69 cents on 241,000 shares amid a continuing two-month silence.
Mark Smith's Niocorp Development Corp. (NB) lost one cent to $1 on 239,000 shares. The company has been promoting its Elk Creek niobium project in Nebraska for what seems forever, occasionally adding a new specialty mineral along the way to support its spiel. The latest addition involves rare earth elements, and Niocorp began 2023 by cheering metallurgical work involving the recovery of rare earths from its Elk Creek rock. The testing, at a Quebec-based demonstration-scale facility, points to "potentially strong rates of overall recovery" of rare earth oxides, although more testing is needed to shoo away the hungry weasel.
Niocorp says it is focused on proving its ability to recover three high-purity rare earth products: neodymium-praseodymium oxide, the key ingredient for permanent rare-earth magnets, as well as dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide, two other rare earths critical for producing powerful magnets for the motors of electric vehicles. Niocorp is enthused about producing these products, as nearly all the supply currently comes from Asia -- mainly China.
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