Investors in Nebraska niobium mine: “Something must happen.”

The addition of those partners, G.X. Acquisitions, did not go as anticipated by NioCorp or its most loyal supporters.

No big-money investor came forward to provide the millions of dollars necessary to finance the construction of the mine.

Barley has not sold his NioCorp shares and has even added to his holdings when the stock reached its record lows. That does not mean he’s happy with the decisions Smith and his corporate management team made.

Barley believes “they overestimated the potential or underestimated the difficulties” of the transaction. In his view, the situation was “totally preventable as human beings, but it happened, and we have to move forward from that.”

He called the deal a “cluster,” adding a word we can not print.

“I didn’t know what else to call it,” he said, “but that’s what it was.”

The partnership with G.X. coincided with NioCorp’s March listing on the prestigious tech-friendly Nasdaq Stock Exchange. It didn’t take long for the stock’s price to drop significantly.

Shares purchased for over $10 in March were worth less than three dollars at the beginning of 2024, a drop of over 60 percent in the stock’s value in one year.

Mining markets analyst Christopher Ecclestone with London-based Hallgarten & Company said, “Nasdaq should have made them a go-go tech story, and all it did was make it go-go down.”

Todd Milke, one of over 5300 Nebraskans owning stock, according to NioCorp, took a huge hit.

“I’m certainly a patient person,” Milke said in an interview, “but it’s been ten years now.”

“The fact that we’re at a 10-year low is just mind-boggling.”

A former worker in the aerospace industry, Milke bought NioCorp stock because he liked the idea of a Nebraska minerals mine providing raw materials for high-tech goods. He still supports the concept of mining strategic minerals and rare earth elements in Nebraska.

“Do I think it’s a good project?” Wilke said, “Yeah, I think it’s a great project.”

The past year has tested his faith in the investment.

“When Mark proclaimed that financing was imminent, I think that’s what a lot of people are a little frustrated about,” he said. After “a comment made like that, you kind of expect something in the near future, not half a decade later.”