By: Dylan Sikes - AllPennyStocks.com News

Monday, May 11, 2015

A few years ago there was tremendous demand for rare earth minerals, which have applications in smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices. Of course, the demand was driven by increasing sales of smartphones and tablets. However, even as demand grew at a robust pace, supply of rare earth minerals remained restricted. The restricted supply was mainly due to China, which is the world’s largest producer of rare earths. China accounted for more than 90% of global rare earth mineral supplies. The supply restriction was placed to help domestic manufacturers of electronic devices. As prices of rare earth minerals surged due to supply constraints, Chinese manufacturers of smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices had an advantage over manufacturers in the U.S., Europe and Japan.

Last year, the World Trade Organization ruled against China’s policy of restricting exports of rare earth minerals. China’s policy of restricting exports also led to the creation of several mining companies in the U.S., Canada and Australia focused on rare earth minerals. While China still dominates the rare earth market, several Western players have been investing heavily in rare earth projects outside China.

One such company is Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (TSX-Venture:UCU). Based in Canada, Ucore is engaged in the exploration and development of rare earth elements. The company’s main focus is on the 100% owned Bokan Mountain project. This morning, UCU announced an upgraded and increased resource estimate for the Bokan Dotson-Ridge rare earth element project.

The property is located in Southeast Alaska. The company said that due to deeper exploratory drilling during the 2014 field season, an additional 1.043 million tons of newly estimated inferred mineralization grading 0.604% TREO at a cut-off grade of 0.40% TREO has now been added to the total resource estimate at Bokan.

In addition, over 98% of the previously established resource estimate has now been upgraded to fully indicated category under NI 43-101 standards.

Commenting on these important developments, Jim McKenzie, President and CEO of Ucore, said that the completion of deeper drilling continues to add significantly to mineralization at greater depth, which is consistent with UCU’s geological model of deep seated hydrothermal events. McKenzie said that the resource upgrade, together with UCU’s recent advances in molecular technology for refining applications, makes for a compelling mine to metal story at Bokan.

UCU also reported that the anomalous skew towards the more valuable heavy rare earths remains consistent across the entire deposit at approximately 40% of total rare earths.

Shares of UCU have been on a climb since late in 2014, marking a new multi-month uptrend for the stock as it continues to get noticed for its fundamentals and strong investment opportunity.

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