May we both have good fortune with COB.
What is not being factored right now in terms of SP is the potential economics of the project and obviously so, only those who want more risk/higher return are taking this up now, many perfectly sensible folk are most happy with less risk and more moderate returns, happy to come on board later in the timeline, we all have our market MO.
The LOM mine will easily surpass 20 years. Only this year ore reserves increased by 55% (contained cobalt up 35%) The last test program produced 20.8% cobalt sulphate with the added revenue benefit of a 99% grade sulphur product. Plus it's tested to show low impurities ie copper and iron etc, the product will be in high demand for the NCM and NCA chemistries. Not to mention production costs dropped in the same update from US$12.87 to US$9.34 lb that's a 27% drop in costs alone. All the numbers are attractive, I harp on about the Pilot Plant because its a "build it and they will come moment" Its job is to make circa 200kg of cobalt intermediate and cobalt sulphate for project partners to assess for purity, this is a speciality area where specific battery ready product is highly prized.
One step at a time for sure, but with product approval comes a new attention upon Broken Hill as a new long term cobalt supply stream to the so called Giga Factories worldwide. COB have interests from a dozen or more Cobalt buyers, some have allowed naming such as LG, Mitsubishi, Sojitz etc others understandably need surety of specified supply to come out from under covers.
Should all things progress well we will see later in 2021 (Q3 was in the update) the pilot plant undergoing upsizing, its a modular design which is planned to be sized up to the demonstration plant (1:1000 to full size)
I think its an exciting new mining prospect in Cobalt. Very keen to see how things are going, hoping the Pilot Plant will be substantially all done by year end, if so we could see sample product as early as February, but time will tell.
Cheers
Phil.
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