- Despite
recent market downturns in the cobalt sector, market analysts see more
than 10 percent CAGR during coming decade
- Cobalt
helps supply critical power to computer industry
- First
Cobalt anticipates updated resource estimate completion in early 2019 for
flagship United States cobalt exploration
- First
Cobalt is also investigating options for restarting its refinery — the
only permitted refinery capable of producing battery-grade cobalt in North
America
A sustainable cobalt resource in North America could provide
the world’s leading tech manufacturers with a conflict metal that’s free of the
human rights concerns and profiteering politics evident in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, where 58 percent of global cobalt production originated
last year (http://ibn.fm/C4b6s)
and as much as two-thirds of the world’s output has been recorded. Aggressive
work by pure-play cobalt explorer First Cobalt Corp. (TSX.V: FCC) (OTCQX:
FTSSF) (ASX: FCC) is making a commercial North American source look more and
more like a possibility.
Cobalt is a rare yet necessary resource for modern
computerized equipment, making up about 60 percent of the lithium cobaltate in
the positive electrodes of the lithium-ion batteries that power everything from
smartphones to electric vehicles and positioning it as a definitive element for
the modern era.
After record price increases in 2017 and early 2018,
cobalt’s market price has fallen as the DRC has output large quantities of the
important metal (http://ibn.fm/IopwI).
However, the DRC’s internal problems are causing companies heartburn outside of
the country, and market analysts predict that the metal’s revenues will
continue to grow at a CAGR of 10.3 percent through 2026 (http://ibn.fm/lxWfj).
Despite the sketchy Congolese history of human rights
concerns and its government’s recent decision to triple royalties imposed on
the foreign corporations mining within its borders (http://ibn.fm/HkynW), those
mining companies continue to bank on the GDP-poor but mineral-rich nation. A
cooperative group of electronic product companies recently launched a pilot
project that is attempting to establish a conflict-free mining operation that
might help assuage DRC-invested foreign countries’ consciences (http://ibn.fm/fj0R1).
The December 23 presidential elections in the Congo could
further frustrate cobalt mining efforts, however, considering that the country
has never experienced a peaceful transition of power (http://ibn.fm/SqiYM) and
political instability tends to undermine a nation’s economic interests.
First Cobalt’s flagship Iron Creek project in
central-eastern Idaho continues to expand as the company works to complete an
updated resource estimate by early 2019. In a news release (http://ibn.fm/ssH59), CEO Trent
Mell said that drilling results announced shortly before Thanksgiving provide
“further support for the development vision for the future of the project.”
A United States-based mining operation would be further
supplemented by the only currently permitted cobalt refinery in North America
capable of producing materials for lithium-ion batteries, which the company
counts among its stable of resources in eastern Canada (http://ibn.fm/h51ml). First
Cobalt has been in talks with third-party investors about the possibilities of
funding the shuttered refinery’s restart operation and has been testing
feedstock materials to see what will perform the best in the North American
market (http://ibn.fm/81hba).
In the company’s back pocket is a third significant North
American asset — the Greater Cobalt Project consisting of more than
50 mines that were historically productive in the Canadian Cobalt Camp of
Ontario, near the refinery.
For more information, visit the company’s website at http://ibn.fm/FTSSF
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