Ucore Rare Metals is mobilising a geological crew to Bokan Mountain/Dodson Ridge on Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska as it resumes development on that rare earth project, Kallanish reports.

The team from Alaska-based contractor Aurora Geosciences Inc is expected to arrive at the site this week. The work will include upgrading the mineral resource estimate, obtaining 50 additional channel samples along the exposed 2-kilometre vein outcroppings and extracting 50 tonnes of supplementary mineralized material from two new bulk sample locations for planned mill flowsheet pilot-scale testing.

The five-week programme at the Bokan Mountain Complex is a continuation of what Ucore had conducted on the Alaskan island starting in 2007 and ending in 2014. But the prices of rare earths have increased significantly, the company says in ordering the new work. It is planning a pre-feasibility study.

The Nova Scotia-based company is also developing what it calls its Alaska Strategic Metals Complex in Ketchikan, Alaska. The $35 million facility would separate and purify REEs. The Bokan Mountain/Dodson Ridge project is about 35 miles from Ketchikan. Initially, the Alaskan plant would process heavy and light rare earth concentrates from US-allied suppliers into commercial purity REE oxides, specifically for REE permanent-magnet applications. The plant would utilise RapidSX rare earth and critical minerals separation technology developed by Innovation Metals Corp, a company acquired last year by Ucore. That process is undergoing commercialisation development in Ontario. It would later process the Alaskan rare earths.

The Ketchikan facility is the first step in the company’s plan to start rare earth production in Alaska. Bokan Mountain/Dodson Ridge houses key US heavy REE deposits of terbium and dysprosium and lighter neodymium and praseodymium. The deposit may hold nearly 5m tonnes of rare-earth oxides, 40% of which are heavy REEs.