NioCorp Praises U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee For Approving Legislation Regarding U.S.-Produced Scandium

NioCorp Developments (“NioCorp” or the “Company”) (TSX:NB) (OTCQX:NIOBF) (FSE:BR3) today praised the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (“SASC”) for its recent approval of legislation requesting a U.S. Department of Defense (“DoD”) briefing on the potential strategic value of U.S.-produced scandium.
The legislation also “strongly encourages” the DoD to consider entering into commitments to purchase strategic and critical materials from U.S. domestic producers that are not yet in production but which the DoD believes are likely to initiate production of such materials within the next five years.

Under the leadership of SASC Chairman Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), and with support from both Republican and Democratic members of the SASC, the Committee recently approved the following language on page 287 of the Committee Report accompanying the Fiscal Year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”):

“Domestic production of Scandium. Given the planned initiation and production in the United States within the next 5 years of as much as 100 metric tons of Scandium, the committee directs the Secretary of Defense to provide a briefing on the potential defense and industrial uses of Scandium to the congressional defense committees by December 1, 2017.”

NioCorp is the only current prospective producer of scandium in the U.S. that has announced plans to produce this amount of scandium on an annual basis.

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