Byron King sets target of UURAF at $22+ US

The name of the company we recommend today is Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (OTC: UURAF), currently selling at about $4.00 per share. And not to get too far ahead, we think a reasonable target for the stock is $22 per share by the late 2020s – up more than 4x from current levels.

Beyond that, for long-term investors, the sky is the limit.

FULL article:

View This Online

The Situation Report October 28, 2025 BUY ALERT: This Company Is Crucial to Solving America’s Rare Earth Bottleneck

Dan Amoss DAN AMOSS

Dear Byron,

Welcome to the latest edition of Situation Report, your premier investing service that combines superior information on geopolitical events with state-of-the-art predictive analytic techniques like our Kissinger Cross indicator.

Also, welcome to the new subscribers that have joined us recently. We hope you are enjoying the publication and look forward to a profitable relationship for years to come. The Kissinger Cross has signaled a new trade. Details are below.

Jim and I are pleased to announce a new addition to our American Birthright II Portfolio. It’s a small-cap, resource sector company that owns a unique and truly valuable rare earth refining process.

It’s so valuable, in fact, that it’s an urgent matter of national security to scale it up rapidly. And it’s not just me saying that; it’s the U.S Department of War, as you’ll see in a moment.

Let’s begin last week, when I attended a natural resources conference with my friend and colleague, Byron King. It was a private event with tight security. The theme was the urgent need to de-risk America’s energy and raw materials supply chain from China. And the keynote speaker was Donald Trump, Jr. – hence the tight security – who offered his views on American energy issues and also asked quite a few solid questions of numerous experts.

From what DJTJr. had to say at the conference, and of course from news accounts, America faces an enormously difficult task of renegotiating trade arrangements with China. As a subscriber to this Rickards letter, you know that China has strategically moved to dominate critical supply chains for all manner of items across the industrial spectrum.

For our purposes, no doubt you’ve seen accounts of how China dominates rare earths elements (REEs). Here’s one graph that helps illustrate the issue:

image 1 Obviously, America is in a strategic-level predicament. That is, U.S. industrial companies rely almost entirely, for now, on refined REEs and other critical materials from China. And China has moved firmly to utilize that advantage, via embargos on exports of REEs, other materials, and even equipment and intellectual property in the fields.

With just REEs alone, Chinese dominance of the entire sector creates a stranglehold on many U.S. industries, from autos to electronics to aerospace, with a key focus on U.S. military equipment.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent nicely summed up the problem in a recent press conference:

“If China wants to be an unreliable partner to the world, then the world will have to decouple. The world does not want to decouple. We want to de-risk. But signals like this are signs of decoupling, which we don’t believe China wants.”

In other words, for the past four decades, much critical industry moved from the U.S. and Western allies over to China in pursuit of some sort of perceived sense of global efficiency. And people write books on that subject, but not here. For now, suffice to say that the U.S. must “de-risk” its supply chains, as Secretary Bessent calls it. It’s a national imperative, and the sooner the better.

From his seat in the Oval Office, President Trump is currently leading the country through a challenging adjustment. America must restructure its supply chains and alter capital flows, and this will create new winners and losers.

Achieving a new balance of industry, and de-risking supply chains, is a daunting challenge; but if you believe in America, you know that our country is up to it which brings us to today’s new recommendation.

When it comes to REEs, Byron knows his chemistry. He has long argued that mining is not nearly as big a bottleneck as rare earth refining.

In fact, at the energy conference last week, Byron sat next to DJTJr. at dinner, and brought a laugh when he said, “Don, anybody can mine rock. But if you can’t process it, you may as well just sell it to a railway company to use as track ballast.”

And this brings us back to the point that, in the arena of natural resource investments, buying stock in companies that address the most urgent bottlenecks can be enormously profitable. In fact, the stock of the company that we are recommending today has rallied strongly so far in 2025. But it recently had a sharp correction, and we view this as a buying opportunity for long-term investors.

image 2 The name of the company we recommend today is Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (OTC: UURAF), currently selling at about $4.00 per share. And not to get too far ahead, we think a reasonable target for the stock is $22 per share by the late 2020s – up more than 4x from current levels.

Beyond that, for long-term investors, the sky is the limit.

Now at this point, I’ve asked Byron to share his views on the company, which he’s followed closely for quite some time.

Byron W. King BYRON KING

Thank you, Dan… and hello to subscribers.

For those who don’t know me, suffice to say that I’m a real live geologist. To get to where I am, I studied a whole lot of math, physics, chemistry, geochemistry, mineralogy, crystallography and more. And I’ve dealt with REEs since my undergraduate days in the 1970s (yes, long ago).

Meanwhile, I’ve followed Ucore since 2010, when I cold-called the company’s then-CEO to discuss an ore deposit up in Alaska. And I’ve kept track of Ucore’s progress ever since, which includes more than a few site visits to lay eyeballs on their projects and to speak with management and technical staff.

As Dan mentioned, mining ore is not a bottleneck; not even ore that contains REEs. Because drilling holes, blasting rock, and hauling crushed stone is not all that hard.

But processing ore into usable, downstream REEs is the real trick. That’s what’s hard in terms of science and engineering, and it’s where China has its massive current advantage.

Keep this in mind, though: China’s current advantage is based on a brute-force approach to large-scale chemistry. That is, the Chinese take crushed ore (and there are many forms of REE-bearing ore) and soak it in acid until certain minerals dissolve. Then, they use a process called “solvent extraction” to pull out the elements they want. And make no mistake, the Chinese are quite good at this, with massive economies of scale across the board.

The Refining Bottleneck – And How Ucore Plans to Break It

But now, along comes Ucore with a leapfrog form of technology, a process that dramatically improves on legacy solvent extraction; Ucore calls it “RapidSX.” It’s much faster than the Chinese tech and dramatically improves yields from each batch of material that goes through the system.

RapidSX is modular, automated, and more cost-efficient than conventional (i.e., Chinese) processing plants. It’s computerized with hundreds of sensors for precise control. It requires minimal staffing.

To prove up its technology, Ucore built a demonstration facility in Kingston, Ontario, which I have visited.

image 3 Ucore polit/demonstration facility in Kingston, Ontario. Courtesy Ucore.

This facility can be operated by just a few people. And it boosts throughput by 10-fold and more over conventional Chinese plants. And as I’ll discuss below, Ucore is currently building a large-scale industrial plant in Alexandria, Louisiana.

But before we head down to the Bayou State, I want to explain just a little bit more chemistry. That is, it might take conventional solvent extraction a matter of days or weeks (sometimes, a month) to process a batch of feedstock. But the Ucore process is up and running in a matter of hours, with astonishing ability to target specific elements for almost complete recovery.

In addition, Ucore’s system is highly adaptable. It can handle what are called “light” and “heavy” rare earths without extensive reconfiguration. And it’s all based on intellectual property rights that are well-secured.

Up in Ontario, the Kingston facility is a proof-of-concept site. Ucore built it to test and tweak its technology, and the complex has been running for about four years. Now, it’s fair to say that the Ucore tech is validated and offers potential for large-scale REEs separation outside of China, something the West desperately needs but hasn’t yet achieved at a meaningful scale.

Louisiana: Ucore’s Strategic Metals Complex

Looking ahead for investors, the real profit opportunity lies in Ucore’s planned Strategic Metals Complex in Alexandria, Louisiana, on the site of a former U.S. Air Force base that was closed about 20 years ago.

The new Ucore facility is located in a Foreign Trade Zone, enabling flexible global sourcing, streamlined logistics, and tariff savings. Its brownfield status expedites development and leverages existing infrastructure, reducing both costs and permitting hurdles. It is well served by air, being a former USAF base with long runways. Plus, it’s right off of main roads, with nearby rail and proximity to the mighty Mississippi River which can handle deep-draft oceanic cargo vessels.

As for equipment, electronics, pumps, piping and more, Ucore has designed its complex to use entirely North American sources. There’s zero reliance on Chinese technology or hardware.

All that, and the Department of War has already committed $22 million in grants to accelerate the commercial build-out of RapidSX in Louisiana. That tells you almost everything you need to know about the strategic importance of this project. Yes, the Pentagon wants this, and as fast as possible.

Another key, related point is that the War Department has granted Ucore a code-status called “DPAS,” meaning Defense Priority Acquisition System. In other words, if Ucore needs any sort of machinery or equipment to construct its plant, the DPAS code moves the request to the front of every line.

Or look at it this way: Ucore plays a central role in a Manhattan Project sense of government urgency to build out REEs capability within the U.S. So, do not be misled by headlines about any sort of U.S.-China “trade deal.” Not in this situation, because REEs are critical to all military equipment and the U.S. cannot accept continuing reliance on China as the ultimate upstream supplier.

Notice that I have not said that Ucore is a mining company. Because no, it’s not a mining company. Instead, Ucore must buy its feedstock – ore and mineral concentrates – from third parties. And yes, absolutely, Ucore has secured multi-year offtake agreements from a long list of suppliers. This will lock in future sources of REEs feedstock, and it will help attract project financing while de-risking startup costs.

Ucore’s supply arrangements are proprietary, but I can say that they involve material that originates within the U.S. and Canada, as well as South America, Africa, Southeast Asia (not China), and Australia.

The Louisiana plant is currently an accelerated stage of design and fitting-out with equipment, piping, electronic systems, storage, etc. The target date for commissioning is third quarter (Q3) of 2026, with full production targeted for 2027.

At full capacity in the late 2020s, Ucore’s plant could process 12,000 tons annually. It will be one of the largest REEs processing facilities in the United States. And even more important, the Ucore facility in Louisiana will specialize in heavy rare earths, which are more difficult to process and significantly more valuable than the light rare earths.

At this stage, I can say that Ucore has had extensive discussions with program managers throughout the Department of War, representing the Air Force, Navy, Army, Marines and Space Force. Ucore is well-known to procurement agents from all of the usual suspects in the defense-industrial complex. And Ucore is also well-known within the automotive, aerospace, electronics industrial supply chains.

With a market cap of about $360 million right now, Ucore is relatively small. It’s not some big, giant chemical company or metals firm. But with its RapidSX technology, Ucore sits in a highly leveraged position for many elements of U.S. industry, especially defense.

And all of this brings us to the question of how to value this early-stage company with its critical future role in the industrial ecosystem. So, I’ll let Dan take it from here…

What is Ucore Worth?

Thank you, Byron…

Companies in Ucore’s phase of life are difficult to value precisely, but here is our best estimate.

The company’s first plant in Louisiana is expected to process about 2,500 tonnes per year of total rare earth oxides (TREO). That’s industry shorthand for the sum of the valuable rare earth elements extracted from raw material. In its initial stage, the plant could produce roughly $150 million in annual revenue once fully ramped.

Over time, Ucore plans to quadruple capacity to 10,000 tonnes per year. At that scale, the plant could generate roughly $600 million in annual revenue and nearly $180 million in operating profit before depreciation.

Assuming all three phases of the Louisiana project are completed, Ucore could be producing around $200 million in EBITDA by the end of the decade. To reach that point, we estimate the total capital cost of the three phases at roughly $1 billion.

With much of the first phase already funded, the company may need to raise an additional $700 million in stages – some through debt, some through new equity offerings. After factoring in those potential new shares, we project a fully diluted share count of roughly 220 million.

Applying a 25 multiple to Ucore’s potential $200 million in EBITDA in the early 2030s implies an enterprise value of about $5 billion. That equates to a blue-sky price target of roughly $22 per share by the late 2020s. That’s up sharply from about $4.00 today.

This is not a conservative forecast. It assumes the Louisiana project is completed on time, on budget, and that operating margins scale efficiently. It also assumes that REEs prices remain stable. Any shortfall in financing, construction delays, or weakness in rare earth markets would materially reduce the valuation.

At the same time, the business case gets back to military-scale politics and American national security. That is, building domestic REEs refining capacity is a bipartisan matter of fundamental national security. The U.S. defense industrial base cannot remain dependent on Chinese-refined rare earth products indefinitely.

Ucore Rare Metals represents the opportunity to hitch a ride on an indispensable company within the U.S. industrial and national security sphere.

Here’s the trade:

⇨ ACTION TO TAKE ⇦ Buy Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (OTC: UURAF) up to $7 per share.

The symbol is UURAF Locate the stock in your portfolio with the ticker: UURAF Once you have the right ticker, locate “Buy”. Click “BUY” to transmit the order. Click Good till Canceled to make this a working open order. Jim and I are expecting great returns from this trade on UURAF. We will be closely monitoring its progress and send out any alerts as warranted.

Again, we welcome the new members to our publication and look forward to providing you with more profitable trades in the coming weeks using the Kissinger Cross indicator, especially in these volatile markets.

Regards,

Dan Amoss Dan Amoss, CFA Senior Analyst, The Situation Report Feedback

Mission Critical: Sign Up for Text Alerts

As soon as I find a new trade or issue an alert, I send a text to my readers on this list. That’s the best way to ensure you can get in and out of these fast-moving trades in time. Click here to sign up. Paradigm My Content My Account Contact Us Please note: We sent this e-mail to you because you are subscribed to this service. The mailbox associated with this email address is not monitored, so please do not reply. We welcome comments or suggestions at AskJim@paradigmpressgroup.com. This address is for feedback only. For questions about your account or to speak with customer service, contact us here or call (844)-731-0984.

Nothing in this e-mail should be considered personalized financial advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized financial advice.

We allow the editors of our publications to recommend securities that they own themselves. However, our policy prohibits editors from exiting a personal trade while the recommendation to subscribers is open. In no circumstance may an editor sell a security before subscribers have a fair opportunity to exit. The length of time an editor must wait after subscribers have been advised to exit a play depends on the type of publication.

All other employees and agents must wait 24 hours after on-line publication or 72 hours after the mailing of a printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended in this letter should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

The Situation Report is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. Please read our Privacy Statement. If you are having trouble receiving your The Situation Report subscription, you can ensure its arrival in your mailbox by whitelisting The Situation Report.

© 2025 Paradigm Press, LLC. 1001 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. This newsletter may only be used pursuant to the subscription agreement and any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world wide web), in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Paradigm Press, LLC.