In his latest report, editor John Kaiser has issued a new "medium priority bottom-fish buy recommendation" for Ucore Uranium Inc. (TSX/VEN-UCU,
.39). Ucore Uranium is a junior exploration company with properties across North America.

The company's Alaska-based flagship property at Bokan Mountain is the site of a former high-grade-producing uranium mine, with an estimated untapped resource of 11 million pounds of uranium and a significant estimated rare-earth-elements (REE) resource. Bokan has near-term production potential and is located in an area of Alaska specifically set aside for natural resource development.

Ucore Uranium has published two sets of drill results which confirm that grades reported through surface sampling by James Barker and Dean Warner in 1989 at Bokan Mountain on the southern tip of Prince of Wales Island in Alaska persist at depth and represent the full suite of rare earth elements normally described as light and heavy.

Mr. Kaiser views Bokan as a special situation that may lead to a buyout during the next couple years with a value of $100-$200 million to the project.

"That may not sound like much in this day of multi-billion dollar talk, but when you consider that Bokan currently has an implied project value of only $44 million based on 109 million shares fully diluted, a 100% net interest and a
.40 stock price, a 300 to 400 per cent gain potential from current levels over the next two years is certainly worthy of respect."

The most likely candidate to buy out Bokan for $100-$200 million is a branch of the U.S. government, one that acts on behalf of the raw-material-procurement needs of the Department of Defense.

Mr. Kaiser concludes that just as the $600 billion annual U.S. defence budget is guided by strategic logic, "along with other types of non-economic logic best not mentioned," so could a Bokan Mountain rare earth mine be operated to meet strategic objectives.

There was a good reason for the U.S. Bureau of Mines to spend so much effort on Bokan Mountain during the eighties, a reason that disappeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But now that rare earth production is dominated by an emerging long-term rival to the United States, and the economics of mining non-Chinese rare earth deposits continues to be a major stumbling block for free market capital, the possibility that Bokan could supply all of the military's needs if all other sources were shut down is likely to get major attention in Washington.

Ucore's focus now is to raise the money required to properly delineate this resource and then shop it around to potential buyers, among whom the U.S. government is a paramount contender, but not the only one.

Mr. Kaiser warns that the stock should not be chased above the bottom-fish buy range of
.30-
.49 because nothing will change until Ucore resumes drilling next year.

The only thing that could change to boost short-term upside is sentiment with regard to the rare earth sector.

"I think rare earth mania will be in an upswing by January, so the tax-loss season should be used to accumulate strategic positions in rare earth juniors. There are not many with stories that can carry the market, and Ucore is one that can."