So Ucore Rare Metals (TSX.V: UCU) put out news this morning titled Ucore Releases Initial Drill Results and Expands Conceptual Estimate that basically "increases the resource by 30% and the grade by 50%...over the asset we announced on May 10th..." was CEO & President Jim McKenzie's reply to my urgent phone call a few minutes ago.

He went on to say that: "As of the end of 2010 - Ucore will have the only primarily HREE skewed deposit on US soil with a 43-101 compliance resource."

I read the news release, thought the results were exciting but our phones have been ringing off of the hook since the stock hit a downward spiral on significant volume (8 million last I checked) on a day when every other rare earth, rare metal and critical metal stock is responding positively to the NY Times story we went live with late last night (thank you Stephanie).

What's going on here? If one has been in the junior metals industry before -- well, than this is an easy 1.2.3...or what I affectionately refer to as "The Iceland Shuffle".

"The Iceland Shuffle" is a behind the scenes maneuver where the dominos line up -- the equation is misperceived, and everyone jumps off the cliff together without looking before they leap.

So our team decided to yell: STOP. Why? Because we love the UCORE story, they have been a RareMetalBlog sponsor since I can remember, and well; I liked this story so much, I donned a pair of hiking boots and travelled to Alaska to see it.

SO why do we like it? SIMPLE: It makes sense -- if you know that they are the leading HREE play located on U.S. soil -- if you know that MOLYCORP does NOT have HREEs and needs them...and well, when you know that Dr. Tony Mariano believes UCORE is a world-class property...and then, if you know about the processing plant race...

Ah, the processing plant race...and don't misread this: there are more than a few players in this race.

Will the Canadians or the Americans build a HREE processing plant first? We have always said that whoever secures the processing plant for the HREEs first, may change the entire landscape of this sector overnight.

Many people out there are 'scrambling' to get in on the rare earth, rare metal and critical metals movement (see www.raremetalstock.com) but as I commented this morning and everytime I write...this is a challenging space, difficult to understand, few professionals can place price valuations, the valuations depend on the breakdown of the metals, the ease to secure them, who will buy them...and as a trusted source said last week -- if you can't do business with the Japanese, you are in the wrong sector.

As the London REE Editor Graeme Irvine said this AM -- the hunting season has arrived.