http://business.financialpost.com/
‘It brings immediate free cash flow into the business’ — to the tune of about $30M a year from Ramu’s cobalt and nickel
Toronto-based Cobalt 27 Capital Corp. on Tuesday announced it will pay $145 million for the right to the cobalt and nickel from the Ramu mine in Papua New Guinea, in what marks the first streaming deal of its kind in the battery metals space.
The company, which announced an US$80-million credit facility earlier this month and US$185 million in equity financing in March, said it will not take on any new debt for the deal — a sign of the market interest for companies with exposure to battery metals as automakers prepare to increase electric vehicle manufacturing.
“This completely transforms our company because it brings immediate free cash flow into the business,” said Anthony Milewski, chairman of Cobalt 27.
It would put Cobalt 27 in line to receive the revenue from the sale of 450,000 pounds of cobalt and 2.25 million pounds of nickel per year — about US$30 million at current prices.
The price of cobalt on the London Metals Exchange has risen more than four-fold to above US$90,000 per ton from under US$22,000 in 2016. Much of the demand is connected to predictions that automakers are about to shift to manufacturing electric vehicles, en masse, and cobalt is a key component of the batteries.
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