Topic: How To Invest

Q: Pat: With the increased demand for electric vehicles and the need for lithium batteries, will the price of cobalt spike? Also, what do you think about the upcoming Cobalt 27 IPO? Thank you.

Article Excerpt

A: The battery industry currently uses 42% of global cobalt production, a critical metal for lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries. The remaining 58% is used in diverse industrial and military applications (super alloys, catalysts, magnets, pigments, and so on) that rely exclusively on the material. About 97% of the world’s supply of cobalt comes as a by-product of nickel or copper (mined almost exclusively in the Democratic Republic of Congo). But low prices for nickel and copper make it uneconomic to mine a number of the big copper/nickel deposits in the Congo and that has squeezed the supply of cobalt. With the price of cobalt rising, and demand increasing from electric car makers, investor attention has begun to turn to the few predominantly cobalt deposits that may be mineable. However, most are still in the early stages and are being explored by highly speculative junior miners. One startup in the news right now—Cobalt 27 Capital Corp., symbol KBLT on the Toronto Venture Exchange—is a..