More press, but this is a very good article (accurate projections or???remains to be seen) and well worth a read on cobalt.....I have quoted a couple points.........
"The arrival of an era of battery-powered vehicles has already kick-started a period of unprecedented growth for the metal, Franck Schulders, Glencore’s head of marketing, cobalt, said in an interview. Volkswagen and Ford Motor are among automakers investing in electric vehicles and the whole market could be worth $244-billion by 2025, Goldman Sachs Group said in a late 2015 report.
Rising cobalt demand and flat supply in the 100 000 metric-tons-a-year market opened a 1 500 t deficit in 2016 that could triple this year, according to CRU Group. There’s more than 370 undeveloped discoveries and at least a dozen viable projects outside Congo that could come online by 2023, CRU senior consultant Edward Spencer said in an email.
“There’s no way that current supply is going to keep up,” saidMatthew Painter, managing director of Ardea Resources, which is aiming to develop a former Vale SA deposit in Western Australia that the company estimates holds the developed world’s largest cobalt resource. “Some of the forecasts for cobalt supply are pretty dire.”..........
"A typical electric car battery contains 15 kilograms of cobalt, while a laptop needs around 33 grams and a smartphone requires 6 grams, according to Sydney-based project developer Cobalt Blue Holdings."
The ubiquitous Robert Friedland is in there in a big way....Ivanhoe in DRC of course, but also Australia.
"Almost all cobalt is produced as a by-product at nickel and copper mines and “in terms of new projects, a higher cobalt price certainly makes some planned multi-metal developments more viable, said Macquarie Group’s head of commodities research Colin Hamilton. While Congo will remain the dominant supplier of the metal, the nation’s market share will fall as a result of developments elsewhere, he said." (The emphasis is mine in this paragraph.)
Let's trust KPMG etc. can get the (former?) BCL setup back on track, PV can get access to that WP report, and whoever takes over at BCL will get cracking with revamping the smelter and involving Botswana Metals in the restructured ops......to me it seems that this is the most likely route for BML holders to see improvement in our situation before we die of old age.
(20min delay)