Running discussion on SP, page-59298

Congo State cobalt monopoly aims to start buying in January

Democratic Republic of Congo’s state cobalt monopoly plans to start buying artisanal cobalt in January, its CEO Jean-Dominique Takis said in an interview at the Reuters Next conference, as the world’s biggest producer of the metal tries to ramp up revenue.

Cobalt, which is trading at around $62,000 a tonne, is used in many of the batteries that power electric vehicles, sales of which are expected to soar as the world strives to cut carbon emissions.

The Congo set up Entreprise Generale du Cobalt (EGC) to buy, process, and market all the artisanal cobalt produced in the country, which miners usually dig by hand and sell to unregulated middlemen who trade it.

“We foresee to be on the market, buying, by late January,” Takis said.

EGC aims to buy 10 000 tonnes of cobalt in hydroxide in 2022.

EGC officially launched in March this year, but has yet to buy any cobalt partly because of a dispute over the Kasulo mine in Lualaba province that it planned to start buying from.

It is still in negotiations with Huayou Cobalt subsidiary CDM, which used to source from the mine, to gain access to it.

“We are in discussions with all the stakeholders regarding Kasulo,” said Takis, adding that “we can foresee that we are coming to a close on the discussions”.

EGC is looking to set up other artisanal sites from which it can buy, Takis said, so that it has a “plan B” even though the company is confident it will gain access to Kasulo.

The EGC still has to win over miners and middlemen though.

“When a system is about to be replaced by another one, there is resistance,” he said.

“Most of the resistance is due to the uncertainty for them on how things are going to play out.”

Takis said there were no restrictions on the middlemen continuing to trade in copper and the EGC aimed to find other ways for them to do business.

The Congo last week announced a new push to develop battery manufacturing capability in the country.

Obstacles to battery manufacturing in the Congo include power provision and infrastructure, but these issues could be overcome, Takis said.

In the longer term, EGC aims to buy 25 000 tonnes a year of artisanal cobalt.

“There is a strong potential and we believe that will be a good response to what the market is expecting in the coming years.”

December 2, 2021 Janet




*To Remind,

lithium-ion battery factory estimated at 39 million USD in the DRC against 112 million USD in China


In a study released during DRC AFRICA BUSINESS FORUM, BloombergNef argues that the Democratic Republic of the Congo could leverage its abundant cobalt resources and hydroelectric power to become a low-cost, low-emission producer country lithium-ion battery cathode precursors.

The research paper estimates that it would cost $ 39 million to build a 10,000 metric tonne cathode precursor plant in the DRC.

That’s three times cheaper than a similar factory in the United States would cost, whereas if it was built in China or Poland, it would cost $ 112 million and $ 65 million, respectively.

The market analyst’s data also shows that the emissions associated with the production of batteries could be reduced by 30% compared to the existing supply chain that crosses China, if the cathode precursor materials – the intermediate material between the raw and finished cathode material – were produced in the DRC, with Poland handling the production of cathode materials and cells, and Germany the final assembly of the pack.

This is due to the DRC’s proximity to cathodic raw materials and its heavy dependence on hydroelectric power stations.

In a press release, reported by mining.com, Kwasi Ampofo, lead author of the report and head of metals and mining at BNEF, argues: “The DRC’s cost competitiveness stems from its relatively cheap access to land. and its low engineering, procurement and construction costs, or EPC compared to the United States, Poland and China ”.

In his opinion, European cell manufacturers are currently heavily dependent on China for battery precursors.

However, the raw materials for batteries are, in most cases, imported into China from Africa and refined before being exported to Europe.

According to him, European automakers can reduce their emissions by shortening the transport distance and capitalizing on the DRC’s hydroelectric network and proximity to raw materials.

The electric vehicle market represents an opportunity of $ 7 trillion by 2030 and $ 46 trillion by 2050, according to projections by BloombergNerf.

November 29, 2021 Janet


Battery metals are critical over the next decade, Roskill says

The growing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is driving the increasing demand for lithium, nickel and cobalt – critical metals used as cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries in the automotive, energy and electronics industries.

According to Deloitte’s Electric Vehicle Trends, EV sales are forecast to grow from 2.5 million in 2020 to 11.2 million by 2025, and to 31.1 million by 2030.

Analysts from Roskill, a commodity research firm and a leader in critical materials supply chains, provide an outlook on battery metals’ markets over the next decade.

Lithium

Global demand for lithium carbonate — one of two primary forms of lithium used in EVs — is expected to exceed one million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) in 2026, according to David Merriman, an expert on EV and battery materials at Roskill.

“To meet this increasing demand for lithium products, which is more than double that expected this year, we would need to see not just an expansion in output from existing producers but also new producers looking to commission new capacity,” he said in an interview.

“This will require significant new investment in the industry.”

Over the medium-term, a significant amount of additional capacity will need to be brought online, which will require lithium prices to support the build-out and investment in new capacity either from existing producers or new producers.

Towards the end of the decade, Merriman forecasts that the lithium market will move into a growing deficit of several hundred thousand tonnes of LCE and will require significant amounts of lithium supply brought online to meet demand growth.

This will require a fundamental change within the industry, particularly in the scale of development projects.

“The industry is likely to shift from 20,000-tonne projects being the normal to 50,000-100,000-tonne projects becoming normal, and a scaling-up of investment to support that shift.”

The shift towards high-nickel cathode materials to increase battery energy density, Merriman said, is also accelerating demand growth for the more expensive lithium hydroxide, another form of lithium used in lithium-ion batteries.

Cobalt

Cobalt is vital for boosting the energy density and life of lithium-ion batteries, and its thermal stability prevents batteries from overheating and potentially catching fire.

Although several EV manufacturers, most notably Tesla, have announced their intention to reduce or eliminate cobalt from battery cathodes because of its scarcity and cost and ethical concerns around mining cobalt,

Roskill Senior Analyst Brian Ziswa expects demand for the blue metal to more than double over the next decade.

“We expect to see demand for cobalt to grow from 136,100 tonnes in 2020 at an average growth rate of 6.8% per year to 280,000 tonnes by 2030,” Ziswa said.

“The expected growth in demand is mainly from its use in batteries for the automotive and portable electronics sectors, which accounted for 56.6% of total cobalt demand in 2020 and is forecast to reach 70% by 2030.”

Supply will come from expansions in existing operations, restarts of operations on care and maintenance, and the commissioning and ramp-up of greenfield projects.

The analyst forecasts that existing operations will account for 183,000 tonnes of cobalt in 2030, of which more than 124,000 tonnes will come from mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The cobalt market over the next decade will be dominated by copper-cobalt concentrate, he said, which is forecast to account for over 70% of the total mine supply in 2030.

About 83% of the total cobalt mine supply in 2030 will come as a by-product of copper (56%) and nickel (27%) mining, he estimated About 16% will be mined as primary cobalt products and from operations that use tailings and artisanal mining as feedstocks.

Ziswa expects the DRC’s dominance in the sector will continue over the next ten years, as ten of the world’s top 15 global cobalt miners operate in the country.

The DRC is forecast to account for about 67% of the world’s mined cobalt supply in 2030.

(Currently, the DRC accounts for about 70% of total global cobalt supply.)

“Cobalt mine capacity has increased significantly in the past three years in the DRC, mainly due to restarts and the ramp-up of some large-scale cobalt mining operations including the Katanga and Mutanda mines,” he said.



February 19, 2021 Janet











Don't forget the Tin

Food for thought

Frank