- Business
- NioCorp Developments Ltd. is a Canadian mineral exploration and development company focused on advancing its Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project in southeast Nebraska, which it is developing as a U.S. source of niobium, scandium, titanium and magnetic rare earth elements for defense, aerospace, advanced manufacturing and other industrial applications. Founded in 1987 and headquartered in Centennial, Colorado, the company is working to build an integrated mine-and-processing operation that is expected to produce ferroniobium, scandium trioxide, titanium tetrachloride, niobium pentoxide and selected rare earth oxide products, with plans to support domestic supply chains and long-term offtake customers. NioCorp also evaluates the potential to produce additional rare earth products from the Elk Creek Project and markets its planned output to industrial and defense-oriented buyers. In recent company developments, NioCorp reported an updated 2026 feasibility study that envisions a 40-year operation with eight critical-mineral products from a single ore body, estimated pre-tax NPV of $4.1 billion and refined project economics, while also beginning underground mine portal construction in February 2026 as a pre-construction milestone. During 2026, the company also entered a non-binding long-term marketing and offtake term sheet with Traxys North America for its remaining planned Elk Creek products, and signed a non-binding MOU with Lockheed Martin covering potential purchases of up to 15 tonnes per year of scandium oxide or aluminum-scandium alloys over a 10-year period, building on a Pentagon-funded joint development program with Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and prior U.S. government support for scandium supply-chain development. The company further reported that in 2025 it raised more than $370 million, including equity financings and $10 million from the Pentagon, and acquired the intellectual property and manufacturing assets of FEA Materials LLC to strengthen its scandium processing and master-alloy capabilities.