Cobalt, page-75

Australia hopes to cash in on new cobalt rush. - Financial Times

A great little article on Cobalt Blue (ASX COB) and their Thackaringa project, which is directly adjacent to our own Thackaringa project.

Small excerpt:
"It is one of Australia’s oldest mining towns that has built its wealth from a huge deposit of silver, lead and zinc. Now, Broken Hill is aiming to tap into the fast growing electric vehicle market by becoming a vital source of cobalt. Mining groups in the outback town, 1,000km from Sydney, are lured by forecasts that demand for cobalt — the main power source for mobile devices and electric vehicles (EVs) — will quadruple by 2029.

Supply concerns have further stoked their interest as two-thirds of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a poor country that suffers from political instability and corruption and which has been criticised for the use of child labour in its artisanal mines. “No one can predict politics in the DRC, the country presents logistical challenges and there is a question mark over the efficacy of the 10 to 15 per cent of cobalt produced there from artisanal sources,” said Joe Kaderavek, chief executive of Cobalt Blue, an ASX-listed miner with an operation in Broken Hill.

“Increasingly, Asian battery makers are looking for the stability that Australian sources of cobalt can offer.”