September 19, 2025 — Pat Ryan doesn’t mince words when he draws a parallel between China’s near-total dominance of rare earth refining and Rockefeller’s 19th-century oil empire. “If I said to you today that China controls 95% of oil refining in the world, you’d be shocked. Of course, they don’t. But they do control 95% of rare earth critical mineral processing. People should be shocked. We’ve got to change that.” His company, Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (TSXV: UCU | OTCQX: UURAF), is positioning itself to be that change, armed with Pentagon grants, state-level incentives, and a refinery set to begi...
Questions asked in this interview
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0:06You're well-funded, you're backed by the Pentagon and state incentives, and you're building a refinery that could start producing within 18 months. Do we have that right?
0:30I have that you've received close to 22.4 million since 2022 from the Pentagon. Is that correct?
1:08These funds, of course as you mentioned, are non-dilutive and they are to build the first full-scale rapid SX production line in Louisiana. Is that correct?
Pat, as autumn approaches, Ukor finds itself in a position of rare leverage. You're well-funded, you're backed by the Pentagon and state incentives, and you're building a refinery that could start producing within 18 months. Do we have that right?
So, I think what distinguishes you, Core, from many of the rare earth hopefuls out there is the extent of the government backing. I have that you've received close to 22.4 million since 2022 from the Pentagon. Is that correct?
That is correct. That is the US Department of War, I guess, is what we're calling it now. But yes, 22.4 million. And it's an OTAA which is an other transaction agreement, which means as you continue to achieve milestones or cleanses as they call them, then you are opening yourself up for further funding. So a very good program to be involved in, and it is grant money which is obviously very nice to our shareholders. There's no dilution.
These funds, of course as you mentioned, are non-dilutive and they are to build the first full-scale rapid SX production line in Louisiana. Is that correct?
That is correct. We're doing it in three stages. Stage one is 2500 tons throughput. Stage two doubles that to 5,000. Stage three, when we're complete, will be a 10,000 TRO, maybe 12,000 TRO. And we'll be producing heavier earth product from that facility as well as light rare earth and also focusing on some other much needed ones that China has banned like samarium and gadolinium. You've also received roughly 15 million from the Louisiana state government and some support from Ontario and Ottawa. Can you give us a bit of an update on that?
The 50 million is primarily tax incentives. We're working with LED, Louisiana Economic Development. They're helping us with hiring the team for production in Louisiana. That's no small feat. They're totally engaged with that. In fact, the LED people are coming to Kingston shortly to take a closer look at what we're doing to make sure when we hire people in Louisiana, we've got a good profile. Of course, we went to Louisiana for its chemical trade. Canadian government, yes, we have a $4.3 million program. It's still run for light rare earth, but we're talking to NRCAN right now about perhaps pivoting that program a little bit differently to accelerate what we're doing in Louisiana. We've run the program with the DoD as a processing trial run to get to heavier earth, which we've done. But on your way to heavier earth, you get to lighter earth. So now we're looking at the Canadian program and saying, thanks for the support, but let's actually use that support money more effectively to make sure we're developing our engineering process flow sheets and testing out production as it should be tested.
And 15 is a lucky number for you. You had an oversubscribed private placement since we spoke to you last of 15.5 million. Can you tell us what that was raised for?
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Ryan, P. (2025, September 19). Pat Ryan of Ucore on Building America’s Rare Earth Refinery with Pentagon and State Backing [Interview transcript]. InvestorNews. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/578634/
MLA
Patrick Ryan. "Pat Ryan of Ucore on Building America’s Rare Earth Refinery with Pentagon and State Backing." InvestorNews, 19 Sep. 2025. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/578634/.
BibTeX
@misc{ryan2025_578634,
author = {Patrick Ryan},
title = {Pat Ryan of Ucore on Building America’s Rare Earth Refinery with Pentagon and State Backing},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, InvestorNews. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2025},
month = {sep},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/578634/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
