Elk Creek Resources, a subsidiary of NioCorp Developments, has been awarded up to $10 million, subject to the achievement of certain milestones, from the U.S. Department of Defense to support the establishment of a domestic scandium mine-to-manufacture supply chain via the Elk Creek critical minerals project in southeast Nebraska.
The investment by the DoD aligns with President Trump’s March 20, 2025, Executive Order 14241 on Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production’s goal to facilitate domestic mineral production. The funding will enable the completion of feasibility study-level engineering, additional reserve drilling, and updated cost estimates for the project.
“We want to thank President Trump, Vice President Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Senators Fischer and Ricketts, and many other government leaders for the opportunity to secure this important funding for the Elk Creek critical minerals project,” said Mark A. Smith, NioCorp CEO and executive chairman.
“We believe this award and the development of the Elk Creek project will position the U.S. as a global leader in the mining, processing, and manufacturing of scandium and scandium alloy components for defense and essential civilian technologies. In doing so, we will greatly reduce our dangerous dependence on China and other adversarial nations for scandium and other defense-critical minerals.”
Smith added, “By facilitating the Elk Creek Project’s advancement to construction and eventual commercial operation, this DoD award will also help America ramp up domestic production of scandium, niobium, titanium, and other critical minerals that are vital to many defense and commercial technologies and which today are almost entirely produced in China.”
The last recorded scandium mining in the United States occurred in 1969.
Source: NioCorp