Drilling Commences at Ucore’s Bokan-Dotson Ridge Heavy Rare Earth Project

Ucore Rare Metals  (TSXV:UCU) reports that drilling has began at Bokan – Dotson Ridge rare earth element (REE) project located in southeast Alaska.

The 2009 program focused on the Dotson, Geoduck, and Sunday Lake areas, with work at the centrally located Dotson Shear producing drill results consistent with historical USBM estimates for the subject areas and target depths. Specific holes returned heavy rare earth content in excess of 90%, measured as a component of the total rare earths (Holes 08-32 & 09-65; at I&L and Sunday Lake), which are among the highest HREE skews on record for a North American rare earth deposit. The 2009 drill season also identified continuous REE mineralization along a strike length exceeding two kilometers along the Dotson Trend.

Jim McKenzie, President and CEO of Ucore Rare Metals says:

“Metal Pages recently announced an aggressive cut back on export quotas of rare earths out of China”. . “For the second half of 2010, Chinese shipments will be capped at 7,976 metric tons, down from 28,417 tons for the same period a year ago, which amounts to a 72 percent decrease in exports. This is as significant shut down of critical rare earth supplies over a much more constricted time frame than previously anticipated by the United States. In turn, the urgency for securing strategic domestic supply is now markedly higher, and the anticipated rare earth shortfall is unfolding much more quickly than we had previously believed.”

“Considered by many to be the nearest heavy rare earth facility to production on U.S. soil, our objective for Bokan will be to transition from the delivery of an NI 43-101 compliant Inferred Resource this year to production pre-feasibility immediately thereafter”. “There’s been a strong show of support for expedited rare earth production at Bokan, from both the State of Alaska and at the Senate level in Washington. Thus, the political response to meeting this supply crisis head-on has been very rapid, to say the least, with prospective economic and permitting measures designed to obtain domestic heavy rare earth production within the U.S. as quickly as possible.”

For complete release, click here.

For more rare earth news, click onto Rareearthinvesting.com