Katanga Mining, mostly owned by Glencore has their resource statement on line for those interested in the types of grade their mine has........
KATANGA MINING LIMITED MEASURED AND INDICATED MINERAL RESOURCE as at December 31, 2017 Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources.....Mt....... %TCu ....................... %TCo
....................KTO ........................................................78.1 ..........3.92 ...........................0.48
................Mashamba East Open Pit .........................60.0.......... 1.68........................... 0.62
................T-17 Open Pit/T-17 Underground .............13.6........... 3.89.......................... 0.61
KOV Open Pit/KOV Underground/KTE Underground 110.4 .....4.75 ...........................0.53
.......................Kananga Mine .....................................4.1............. 1.61............................ 0.79
........................Tilwezembe Open Pit .........................9.5.............. 1.89.......................... 0.60
........................KITD Tailings..................................... 7.8.............. 1.49........................... 0.16
..............................TOTAL .........................................283.5........... 3.60........................... 0.54
From here......
http://www.katangamining.com/~/medi...2/media/newsreleases/news2018/2018-01-31a.pdfThat resource is a very impressive 10 Million tonnes of Copper and 1.5 Million tonnes of Cobalt!!!
However 3 aspects stand out.
1. The highest grade cobalt ore is underground and in relatively small quantities
2. All the cobalt grades are less than 1%
3. The cobalt grade in the old tailings is at 0.16%!!
In annexure c on page 7 it shows a fairly constant cobalt recovery of 65%.
Doing some quick rough numbers for myself on a 250,000t/a plant, and assuming the 'ore' we can find on the tenements are around the average of the Katanga Mine (.54%).............
I get 250,000(t) X .0054(grade) X .65% (recovery) = 877.5 tonnes of cobalt. WFE holders will only be entitled to 50% of this or 438.75 tonnes.
Even at $100,000/tonne, for a cobalt concentrate, not cobalt metal, gross revenue before any expenses would only be $US43.8m/a.
If payability on a cobalt concentrate was 65% of the LME price (assuming $100,000/t), the total revenue would come back to ~$US28.5M (again BEFORE any expenses!!).
AS I stated above, these numbers are mine, working out how the plant would go if using the average ore of the biggest richest cobalt mine in the world (Katanga). Of course the ore bodies just lying around this area could be so much better than Katanga but I'm not going to bet my money on that.
