Throw enough money at the cobalt potential in Australia and its likely that our cobalt reserves are many magnitudes more than the current circa 1.5 million metric tons, even at this it is still the second largest resource in the world behind the DRC's 8.3 million metric tons. Over the last few years the DRC has concerned me less and less, in fact these days as a Western cobalt supplier it doesn't bother me at all, even the price which can be set and is often so with the customer/s, I believe we will see a different price discovery mechanism over time, but that's further down the track, everything takes time eh.
I know I have mentioned this before regarding the DRC, it's basically China's cobalt, they cornered the DRC cobalt back in 2009 and were unwittingly supported by the West who bought China's refined cobalt in lots of "stuff" along with just about everything else. How must cash went to China just for batteries, all manner of em! lordy lordy it was/is a pretty penny.
The past is not all that important to the likes of a COB imo. I contend it matters little how much cobalt flows in the DRC/China stream, the West will not buy from that stream, not immediately of course, but soon enough. The West has woken up after decades of buying cheap 'stuff" from China, expecting everyone to play nice. We all loved that ....right. But it had a nasty kick in the tail, it produced a competitor who simply became too competitive to ignore. Better late than never the West has moved faster than I would ever have expected particularly on critical minerals, and that is to their credit!
We will see massive change in the source and supply chains of all critical minerals. COB is a small part of this big picture, however not so small in the fledgling Western Cobalt sector. I expect the DRC/China cobalt stream to be "Verboten" so to speak.
Cheers Phil.
COB Price at posting:
35.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
