Cobalt: A critical metal

Trump signs executive order to ensure US's critical minerals supply

New York (Platts)--21 Dec 2017 1222 pm EST/1722 GMT

US President Donald Trump signed Wednesday an executive order for developing a federal strategy that ensures "secure and reliable supplies" of critical minerals.

Inked amid growing concern about reliance on imports, the order aims to reduce "this dependency of the United States on foreign sources," for minerals such as cobalt, graphite, lithium and others.

The executive order, in fact, was signed a day after the US Department of the Interior and the US Geological Survey issued a comprehensive report showing that the US is "100% foreign-reliant on 20 minerals," and that "rare earth minerals are produced almost exclusively in China." The report identified 23 of the minerals that the Interior Department says are most-needed to sustain the national defense and economy "and are used in manufacturing everything from batteries and computer chips to equipment used by our military."

U.S. sees foreign reliance for 'critical' minerals as security concern

Full report here: https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1802/f/pp1802f.pdf

Kalgoorlie And Murrin Murrin deposits even get a mention