Showing your ignorance. The only reason 66% comes from DRC is nobody else can be bothered digging the stuff up. It's plentiful in supply all over the planet. Sunrise Metal in NSW is sitting on a truck load, traditionally mined as a by-product of Nickel. If political risk impacted DRC supply then price would rise, and everyone would un-mothball Nickel mines.
Also 20-30% of the DRC cobalt mining is done by artisinal or small mining ventures. This will continue no matter the political situation in DRC as it it sold via black markets to larger companies. There is too much money in this for the local population to stop it, and too much profit for large or state owned companies not to take advantage. The players might change, but the flow of spice from DRC in regards to cobalt would not
The political risk is different for AVZ as it risks investing and being taxed out of it's profitability once the infrastructure is in place. Or a regional war breaks out, etc etc. The Lithium would still get mined, just who makes the $ out of it. It's a big resource and if EV revolution keeps going it will likely be mined....i'm just not sure by whom. The other concern is the time to build the transport infrastructure in a poorly run country with craptacular weather.
PLS was also very wise to de-risk the China situation by offtake with South Korea and now further by local conversion. They also went into care and maintenance during the downturn. One of the major sins AJM committed was poor choice of Chinese based offtake agreements without proper diversification.
PLS Price at posting:
$1.16 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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