The focus is starting to swing back to EV battery metals - all those great 90 plus battery giga plants and all those millions of EV vehicles are going need battery minerals, Cobalt, Nickel, Manganese Lithium and of course a lot more Copper to wire it all up.

CLA is Cobalt however our bi product Copper grades particularly in the North West anti-cline of 0.40% to 0.60% are very good.

You can be sure we are on the strategic mineral guys radar - they are looking at the same medium - long term demand and supply charts we are - Citi project Cobalt back to US$80,000+ per ton post 2022. It will take 3+ years to build Opuwa so timing is everything


Reuters article

Column: Why the cobalt market needs Congo's "illegal" miners

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BOOM AND BUST

Artisanal production helped mitigate a shortfall in global official-sector supply over the middle of this decade and played a part in the price bust that has followed the 2017-2018 boom.

The price of cobalt metal traded on the London Metal Exchange surged to a March 2018 peak of $95,250 per tonne from around $33,000 at the start of 2016.

Since those heady days cobalt has crashed and burned as production, both official-sector and artisanal, has risen and speculative inventory has been unwound. The price is currently at $27,050.

That alone is expected to squeeze out much of Congo’s swing artisanal supply, limiting the market shift into surplus.

Analysts at Citi forecast the market to remain in surplus over 2019-2022 to the tune of between 4,000 and 14,000 tonnes per year.

“However post 2022 with mine supply growth slowing, cobalt demand from EVs rising rapidly, and work in progress inventories rising notably, we expect the balances to shift into significant deficit, and prices to rise back to $80,000 per tonne and potentially higher,” Citi says.’