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Cobalt, Critical, Strategic and Rare Earth Minerals and Metals

Apple leads way in tracing cobalt from Congo, Microsoft lags: Amnesty – by Eric Onstad (Reuters U.S. – November 12, 2017)

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Apple is leading the way in tracing cobalt used in its electronics to ensure the metal has not been mined by children in Democratic Republic of Congo while Microsoft is lagging, Amnesty International said.

Microsoft disagreed with the pressure group’s conclusions published on Wednesday. Congo is by far the world’s biggest producer of cobalt, accounting for more than half of global supplies of the metal, a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries.

Amnesty, however, says about a fifth of the country’s cobalt production is mined by hand by informal miners including children, often in dangerous conditions. Cobalt has shot to prominence in recent months and its price skyrocketed due to expected growth in demand for electric vehicles powered by lithium-ion batteries.

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The German Auto Industry’s Darkest Secrets – by Melanie Bergermann, Simon Book, Alexander Busch and Martin Seiwert (Handelsblatt Global – November 3, 2017)

https://global.handelsblatt.com/

German consumers purchasing a new electric car may be buying a few extras they didn’t reckon with – such as child labor, corruption and police brutality.

The young man shyly moves his T-shirt down over his belly, hiding the scars from the operation and the exit holes. His fellow South Africans call Mzoxolo Magidiwana, 24, “dead man walking” because he will never recover from the injuries he suffered when police opened fire on him and his fellow workers five years ago. Bullets tore into his stomach and his right arm no longer has any strength; nor can he walk properly anymore.

Mr. Magidiwana was one of the leaders of the 3,000 miners who went on strike on August 12, 2012 to protest poor working conditions and low pay at the Marikana platinum mine some 100 kilometers from Johannesburg in South Africa.

The workers were being paid just €400 ($464) per month for back breaking work. Below ground, they had to contend with constant accidents and dust that made them ill. Above ground, they were breathing the toxic fumes coming out of the platinum smelter.

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The Canadian Ghost Town That Tesla Is Bringing Back to Life – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – October 31, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com

Renewed demand for cobalt, the metal, is breathing new life into Cobalt, the town.

Ironically, Cobalt, Ontario—population 1,100—was built on silver. Remnants of a boom that transformed the town more than a century ago are everywhere. A mine headframe still protrudes from the roof of the bookstore, which was previously a grocery.

The butcher used to toss unwanted bones down an abandoned 350-foot shaft in the middle of the shop floor and keep meat cool in its lowered mine cage.

While the last silver mines closed almost 30 years ago, a global push for the village’s namesake metal is promising to breathe new life into the sleepy town 500 kilometers (300 miles) north of Toronto.

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LMEWEEK-Electric cars yet to turn cobalt market into gold mine – Nornickel – by Polina Devitt (Reuters U.K. – October 30, 2017)

https://uk.reuters.com/

MOSCOW, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Demand for cobalt used to make rechargeable batteries that power electric cars has not yet translated into a tighter market, according to Russia’s Norilsk Nickel, a major producer of the metal.

Materials used to make the batteries will be a key topic of discussion during LME Week, a gathering of the metal industry in London this week.

“The price is higher but there is no tense situation with cobalt supply now,” Anton Berlin, Nornickel’s head of strategic marketing, told Reuters in an interview.

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We’ll All Be Relying on Congo to Power Our Electric Cars – by Thomas Wilson (Bloomberg News – October 26, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The cars of the future will depend increasingly upon supplies of an obscure metal from a country in the African tropics where there has never been a peaceful transition of power and child labor is still used in parts of the mining industry.

Most major automakers are pledging to build millions of electric vehicles as the world’s governments crack down on climate-damaging emissions from traditional-fuel engines.

As a result, demand is surging for lithium-ion batteries and the materials needed to make them — including cobalt, a relatively rare substance found mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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A renaissance to reverse US strategic minerals imports: Dig, Baby, Dig – by Ned Mamula and William Murray (The Hill – October 23, 2017)

http://thehill.com/

The “energy dominance” strategy pursed by the Trump administration has focused on keeping the national economy free from coercion by nations that use resources as economic weapons.

In a joint op-ed in June, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt alluded to this strategy, extolling the American energy renaissance and pledging that energy discussions would “no longer (be) about peak resources or being beholden to foreign powers.”

Given this heightened attention to energy security, it’s too bad leaders are not paying the same attention to a national security risk at least as large as oil-import dependency was a decade ago — the domestic supply of critical and strategic minerals.

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Electric vehicle ambitions spark race for raw materials – by Henry Sanderson (Financial Times – October 23, 2017)

https://www.ft.com/

Manufacturers are scrambling to seal long-term deals for supply of lithium, cobalt and nickel

As carmakers gear up to electrify their fleets, a new scramble for resources is under way to ensure there is enough raw material for a rapid expansion of battery production.

Electric car batteries rely on a host of materials — from lithium to nickel, cobalt and graphite — while some cars also use motors that require rare earths.

Prices have soared rapidly over the past year, with cobalt, a greyish metal mostly mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, up more than 190 per cent over the past 18 months. Carmakers and battery producers are rushing to lock in supply agreements from mining companies for the metals as forecasts for consumer uptake of electric vehicles increase and governments launch policies to back a shift away from combustion engines.

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China’s Jinchuan eyes new nickel, cobalt project to tap electric vehicle boom – by Tom Daly (Reuters U.S. – October 20, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING (Reuters) – Jinchuan Group [JCHRP.UL], China’s top nickel producer, will next year start building a new project in Guangxi that will produce raw materials for electric vehicle (EV) batteries, its chairman said, looking to tap the sector’s “explosive” demand.

The project, in the southern port city of Fangchenggang, where Jinchuan already smelts copper and nickel, will have annual production of 30,000 tonnes of nickel and 3,000 tonnes of cobalt by 2020, Wang Yongqian said in an emailed Q&A with Reuters.

The company’s three main metals “are all raw materials for electric cars,” Wang said, forecasting “explosive growth” in EVs in China over the next five-10 years. Wang was in Beijing this week to attend the 19th Communist Party congress.

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NEWS RELEASE: FORMATION CAPITAL CORPORATION U.S. ANNOUNCES POSITIVE ENGINEERING FEASIBILITY STUDY TO BUILD $187 MILLION MINING AND REFINING OPERATIONS IN EASTERN IDAHO

BLACKFOOT, ID – October 19, 2017 — Salmon, Idaho based salormation Capital Corporation, U.S., a wholly owned subsidiary of eCobalt Solutions Inc. (ECS.TSX / ECSIF.OTCQB) has received an economic Feasibility Study that outlines the development of a cobalt mining operation near Salmon, Idaho and hydrometallurgical refining facility on a railhead in neighboring Blackfoot, Idaho. The project is known as the Idaho Cobalt Project, and is owned by eCobalt’s wholly owned subsidiary, Formation Capital Corporation, U.S.

With pre-construction activities already underway, the vertically integrated Idaho Cobalt Project is designed to produce cobalt for the rechargeable batteries market.

The total initial capital cost is estimated at $187 million with additional sustaining, reclamation and closure costs of $101M totaling $288 million. Construction of the project is contingent upon the successful conclusion of mine financing.

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: The Truth About the Cobalt Crisis: It’s Not a Crisis, Yet – by Jason Deign (Green Tech Media – October 8, 2017)

https://www.greentechmedia.com/

Volkswagen’s failure to secure long-term cobalt supplies has highlighted concerns over one of the most precarious elements in the lithium-ion battery supply chain.

There is sufficient cobalt worldwide to meet foreseeable demand for the mineral, according to Caspar Rawles, an analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. The real question “is whether we can access it quickly enough,” he said.

Volkswagen last month sought to secure a €50 billion ($59 billion) contract to supply enough cobalt for 150 gigawatt-hours of lithium-ion battery storage by 2025, which Rawles said could amount to roughly 30,000 tons of the metal a year.

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Electric Car Makers Have an Africa Problem – by Leonid Bershidsky (Bloomberg News – October 17, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Automakers find it hard to lock in the price of cobalt for batteries.

Volkswagen’s recent failure to lock in the price of cobalt for five years points to a serious problem with the optimistic projections of an electric vehicle revolution. These projections are based on gradually declining battery prices, but the scarcity of certain minerals and their concentration in politically unstable countries may interfere with that dynamic.

The high price of batteries necessary for a solid EV range is the biggest reason EVs now need government subsidies to sell in noticeable quantities. In a recent paper, Vrije Universiteit Brussel’s MOBI Research Group projected, however, that the price will fall to $100 per kilowatt-hour from the current $432 sometime between 2020 and 2025.

If that happens, electric mobility without much “range anxiety” (the worry your battery will run out en route) will be within the reach of most people who can buy a gasoline-powered car today.

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Robert Friedland-backed cobalt company considering Canadian listing: sources – by Niall McGee and Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – October 14, 2017)

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/

An Australian cobalt company backed by mining financier Robert Friedland is considering a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange, sources familiar with the matter said, as demand for the battery-making metal soars amid supply shortages.

The company, called Clean TeQ Holdings Ltd., is already public in Australia and has seen its stock hit a record high thanks in part to a spike in cobalt prices this year.

Clean TeQ is talking to investment banks Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd. and BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. about a number of options, including raising additional funds through a Canadian offering, or a straight listing on the TSX, without raising new money right away, sources said.

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VW fails to secure long-term cobalt supply for electric vehicles – by Henry Sanderson and Neil Hume (Financial Times – October 15, 2017)

https://www.ft.com/

An attempt by one of the world’s biggest carmakers to secure long-term supplies of cobalt for its push into electric vehicles has been shunned by leading producers of the metal.

Volkswagen issued a tender last month seeking a minimum of five years of supply at a fixed price, according to people familiar with the process, but struggled to find any takers.

The carmaker put off miners by suggesting a price that was well below current market prices, which have jumped by more than 80 per cent this year, the people said. “They’re being arrogant because they’re automotive and they’re used to doing it,” one trader said. “They completely misjudged the contents of the tender. There’s no point negotiating — it’s not even a discussion point.”

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Electric vehicles trigger search for lithium and cobalt – by Chris Tomlinson (Houston Chronicle – September 27, 2017)

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/

Automakers this summer touted plans to offer more electric vehicles, with Mercedes-Benz announcing it will spend $1 billion to add a battery factory to its plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Ford is investing $4.5 billion in electric vehicle production, Volkswagen has promised 30 electrified models, and Volvo plans to go all electric or hybrid by 2019. Even Porsche will offer a battery-powered sports sedan called Mission E in 2020.

Automakers expect to sell 20 million all-electric vehicles in 2030, according to conservative estimates, prompting questions about where the raw materials will come from to make all of those batteries.

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Everyone wants cobalt, but few want to get tangled up in the world’s largest producing nation – by Lynsey Chutel (Quartz.com – September 27, 2017)

https://qz.com/

For too long, the Democratic Republic of Congo has known no competition in the cobalt market, to its detriment. The metal, which used to be just a byproduct of nickel and copper mining, is fast becoming one of the core ingredients of our technology-driven lifestyles. The instability in the DR Congo, however, is driving some investors to look to much smaller but more reliable cobalt sources.

Earlier this year, Canada began to notice the makings of a cobalt rush, starting in the town of Cobalt, Ontario—named for the mineral that was discovered there. More than a century ago, the region was the site of an old-fashioned silver rush, but its resources were soon eclipsed by Africa’s offering.

Prospectors are again returning to the town of Cobalt: By May this year, more than a dozen mining companies had staked their claim in the Canadian town, the Northern Prospectors Association told Canada’s CBC.

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