Notice how four original milestones were due on different dates. On the revised version all four were due on the same day. And the description changes. But what does it mean? What has changed?

The Swap

The first modified item is CLIN 0003 ($406,913). The original award was for Complete LC-HREE SX-3, a separation stage. The milestone re-aligned to Complete Initial Business Development.

Then the CLINs 0004-0006 ($1,388,947) were supposed to fund the Complete LC-HREE SX-6, Complete RapidSX-0 Process (Y Removal) and complete HC-HREE SX-1. These steps realigned in the revised contract into the plant run-time, MREO processing and demo plant extractions demonstrations.

The Department accepted the final Phase 1 report on April 7, 2026 and the RapidSX Techno-Economic Assessment which is a proprietary report. Their specifications change, but what about the objectives of private investors? Does the approval of the Department mean the private investors meet their objective too?

The Two Buyers

The sophisticated private investors take calculated risk. The targets of CLINs 0003-0006 are separation stages. A successful prototype is one step closer to commercial scale production. However business development is vague.

The goal of the original contract was to advance the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of Ucore's technology from 6/7 to 7/8. TRL ranges from 1, basic principles observed and reported to 9, actual system proven through successful mission operations. The Department can consider demonstration-plant runtime as a success. A private investor knows the plant ran for hours. What about the separation process? Did it work too?

The approval of the Department is useful for private investors if it signed an off-take agreement above the market price and set the floor price. However Ucore said in June 2026

there is no assurance that Ucore will be able to negotiate any additional funding from the U.S. DoD for the development and/or construction of equipment, machinery or any other aspects of the Demo Plant and/or the Louisiana SMC or negotiate a favourable supply agreement with the U.S.DoD with any price floors

Government funding is a proxy for the minimum entry fee to test a high-risk high CAPEX technology. Who pays the rest?

You

Ucore reported by early 2024 the anticipated cost to complete the project has risen from C$5,000,000 to C$7,500,000. Ucore's share after government funding was around C$2,000,000. A few months later again the cost rose to C$9,750,000, but the government still awarded USD$ 4,000,000. It's true the Department extended the contract for about another 18 million dollars, but the extension of the fund is planned for another 20 milestones.

Ucore has to raise the rest, via equity or debt. It usually comes from the private investors. The case for investing early as a private investor is leverage on future cashflow. What does the risk look like?

The Collateral

Half a year after the award, Ucore finally put the separation technology into service. The next day they put the intellectual property as a collateral for a loan. The lender was Orca Holdings, previously mentioned in Part 4 and 5. The loan took effect only once Orca held "a duly executed copy of an intellectual property security agreement". So the patent application, the Trademarks, know-how and the trade secrets were collateral.

As a private investor you either have the core asset as the collateral or you don't. The patent at the time had not been granted.

The First Client

Ucore produced a sample of 99.5%+ neodymium-praseodymium oxide on 22 June 2026 at the demonstration plant in Kingston. They sent the sample to major permanent magnet manufacturers serving North America and Europe (no names were given). The feedstock was ionic clay source, not Bokan. Was it a success?

Production alone is not enough to answer the question but whether the demanding buyers (magnet makers) accept the product according to their specification. This is a lengthy process.

Ucore once a junior uranium explorer, aimed to be a REE separation company.

The Jump

A private Toronto company said in 2012:

There is a popular belief in the industry that a 'mine to market' strategy is the only way to succeed in this sector. This vertical-integration model is often based on flawed assumptions pertaining to value creation; in most cases, the jump from one part of the value chain to the next, cannot overcome a junior-mining company's cost of capital. Pursuit of this strategy alone, has the potential to lead to shareholder-value erosion.

The company was Innovation Metals Corp. Its goal was to fix the lack of independent rare-earth processing and separation facilities outside of China. Ucore a junior mining company, bought the Innovation Metals in 2020 and made the jump.

Jack Lifton a man with over 50 years of experience in global OEM automotive earth industry joined the Ucore advisory board in 2016. He wrote in July 2026 about how China's integrated ecosystem and demand from downstream made it into rare earth dominance. That ecosystem cannot be replicated under one corporate structure. He was talking about the industry not Ucore. This is my decision to include the article beside Ucore. The link to the specific article is inside the reference list, a must read.

Ucore aimed for the vertical integration from 2019 to 2022. From 2023 they aimed to help developing a vertically integrated rare earth elements supply chain. One component of the chain is the magnet maker and if they accept the product, it will be a huge success for Ucore. What is still unproven is an economically viable production line at commercial scale.