Good points mate. Every commodity is different and certainly I...

Good points mate. Every commodity is different and certainly I am no lithium expert so wouldnt touch it personally. Some key differences are that COB is using new technology / flow sheets to extract the cobalt that is not yet proven on a large scale from my understanding (Demo plant clearly is a big step up from pilot plant in a lab but the real operation is a massive step up again). Also cobalt has been progressively reduced (halved or more) in mny batteries in recent years - 'thrifting' Joe calls it - and Elon Musk has made threats about not needing any cobalt and many new Chinese EV dont have cobalt for short range EV's. Elon Musk stuff I know is generally self serving so not giving much credence to this. So there are a few differences between cobalt and lithium and clearly the underlying spot prices have diverged massively in the last 18 mths (lithium up 5X and cobalt down - as COB had guided us to expect as new Congo supply ramps up - I am not overly concerned with short term down movements in cobalt price as had expected it largely)

I am still keen and bullish longer term for COB but ask yourself this one question. If you were the CEO of Samsung of LG and COB wanted material pre-payments (we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars) up front for future deliveries of cobalt years down the track what concerns would you have? Clearly the risk of technical obsolence is a major one. Secondly company specific operational risk is another (eg this would never happen but whats say there was a massive fraud/embezzlement etc in any company and the prepayments of hundred of millions of dollars are goneski and unrecoverable). Getting this off take is NOT EASY and I am concerned there is significant push back from the off take partners to what COB is trying to achieve which is avoiding massively dilutive share raisings (ie more than 1 for 1 rights issue) and expensive corporate debt (probably Senior debt with a 13-17% coupon rate). Both of these scenarios are on the cards if COB doesnt achieve off take prepayments and neither are very attractive funding options for 650m+