COB is now just a few weeks away from releasing a highly anticipated PFS.. I have reviewed most of the company’s announcements as well as interviews with “Proactive Investors”. A few excerpts from the CEO. Proactive Inv. March 5th2018 “A traditional cobalt mine sells a concentrate product into an established refinery chain and receives circa 30% of the cobalt price in payment. Our ‘mine to battery’ strategy, however, focuses on delivering a high purity CoSO4 crystal directly into battery production, achieving a premium to the cobalt price. (= at least 105%). Investors should think of Thackaringa as a world-class integrated cobalt mine/refinery.”
Proactive Inv. 19 March: “The confidence of an indicated resource ( 72% now) is a big tick, the scale (61 000 T of contained Cobalt) is a big tick and that is only the first double punch because as we come into the PFS investors will see how we will process the ore, and how effectively we can do that.”
Proactive Inv: 26 March : “By chasing one metal we can optimise the whole process to extract that metal rather than concentrating on other metals,”.
April 11 Presentation: from COB website. In 2017 COB drilled 12 000m. In 2018 the target is over 13 000m, “ one of the largest commitments on the ASX”. The aspirational target is a significant improvement in size of the Thackaringa cobalt deposit. From what I understand an increase of 1% in EV penetration rate increases auto battery cobalt demand by 44% CAGR . In the same document 2 slides are key: the first one about COB unique ability to increase its ore grade by a factor of around 5 before the expensive chemical processing ( p.21) and the second one( p.22) about the much lower temp and pressure required to leach the concentrate ( no HPAL) versus its peers on the top right of the graph. Thanks to the above COB will very likely require lower CAPEX and achieve lower OPEX than its Ni+Co peers in Australia. COB – Comparison with ASX peers After simple gravity concentration around 0.5% =5000ppm COB – Position in POX Industry : No HPAL for COB.: . COB will leach at 5-10 atmospheres and 130 celcius versus HPAL 50 atmospheres and 230 celsius for Nickel/ Cobalt laterite projects. I tried to put the 2 slides here but could not. If someone can do it, thank you in advance.
COB Price at posting:
$1.20 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
