Mining and commodities trader giant Glencore (LON:GLEN) is lending Canada’s First Cobalt Corp. (TSX-V:FCC) an initial $5 million to restart the company’s refinery in Ontario, which would become the only North American producer of refined cobalt for the electric vehicle (EV) market.
Glencore said that once a definitive feasibility study for the expansion is completed, expected to happen in early 2020, it would invest another $40 million into recommissioning and expanding the refinery, located 600 km from the US border.
The facility has the potential to produce either a cobalt sulfate for the lithium-ion battery market or cobalt metal for the North American industrial and military applications.
Based on a study carried out by Ausenco Engineering Canada, if the First Cobalt refinery operated at 55 tpd, it could produce 5,000 tonnes a year of contained cobalt in sulfate, assuming cobalt hydroxide feed grading 30% cobalt.
The companies are targeting first production late next year, with the planned expansion completed in 2021.
Prices for the battery metal have soared more than 30% since Glencore announced this month it would close its Mutanda mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s largest cobalt mine, offering hope for a sector whose shares have been hit by fears over a global recession.
Oversupply and stockpiling by companies in the battery supply chain, however, had caused the metal fell to $12 a pound. In April last year, cobalt was selling for $44 a pound, its highest level in a decade.
from MINING.COM https://ift.tt/2ZlvZl9
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