Interesting article March edition 'Paydirt'...

Interesting article March edition 'Paydirt' Magazine

Quote:
"Prices for cobalt, tantalum and rare earth elements (REE) will all suffer from supply side threats despite growing demand from the new technology sector, Core Consultants managing director Lara Smith said at Mining Indaba."
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"Cobalt is finding increased use in the battery sector, though supply logistics from the DRC are challenging. Additionally there is the risk that China could cut cobalt exports." Smith said.

"Over 50% of world cobalt reserves are found in the DRC, yet in 2011 less than 5% of cobalt was refined in the region as most was going east to China for refinement, who then sold on to the US, Chin's largest export market for cobalt."

"We believe that 12-13 million hybrid electric vehicles will be on the road by 2020, which needs 20-50,000 ton of cobalt. In addition, China expected to produce 18 million e-bikes by 2015 and Boeing expects 33,500 new aircrafts over the next 20 years which needs cobalt super-alloys for that."

"Based on our analysis, we do agree that these metals should be considered critical and we believe that these metals run the risk of being in critical short supply in the near future."