To provide an update on the timeline Joe Kaderavek, chief executive officer, exclusively joins Proactive Q&A Sessions™.
PROACTIVE INVESTORS: Welcome Joe.
First of all, how is the listing campaign progressing along with fund raising?
Joe Kaderavek: The fund raising is proceeding to target, with cash in bank well over the minimum subscription of $8 million.
There are bids supporting a strongly oversubscribed offer, so we remain on track to close.
Can you update investors on the resource at Thackaringa?
Joe Kaderavek: As part of the listing process, Cobalt Blue has been required to restate the Thackaringa resource to JORC 2012 conventions.
This has been conducted in parallel with the listing process, and I am very happy to say that the upgrade has been approved and timelines have been agreed:
- Closing Date for the Priority Offer and the General Offer: 18 January 2017.
- In Specie Distribution completed: 25 January 2017.
- Allotment and issue of Shares under the Priority Offer: 25 January 2017.
- Allotment and issue of Shares under the General Offer: 25 January 2017.
- Expected date for despatch of holding statements: 25 January 2017.
- Shares commence trading on ASX on a normal T+2 basis: 31 January 2017.
What is the importance of the JORC upgrade?
Joe Kaderavek: Upon listing, Cobalt Blue will now benefit from a significant technical improvement on the geological quality of the Thackaringa deposit.
We already know that there is a potential world class cobalt resource at Broken Hill, and that strong growth in global demand is reflected in rising cobalt prices.
The early JORC 2012 upgrade will advance the work that we have already committed to, and ultimately, determine the commercial feasibility of the project.
That upgrade, along with a program to boost the size of the inferred resource to 100 million tonnes and completion of a Scoping Study by next June, are our immediate priorities after listing.
Moving on to the cobalt market, what importance does the Democratic Republic of Congo play?
Joe Kaderavek: Cobalt is a critical commodity, which are considered vital for the economic well-being of the world's major and emerging economies, yet whose supply may be at risk.
Among these critical commodities are metals used in the manufacture of high-tech applications such as lithium-ion batteries, mobile phones, solar panels and electric cars.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) central bank recently announced that the production of cobalt, slipped 0.8% to 21,493 tonnes in the third quarter and is down 9% year to date.
With over half of global supply of cobalt coming from the DRC, the fragile supply of this metal is being increasingly stressed.
Balanced against this stretched cobalt supply is a demand shift towards high growth clean energy markets such as those of lithium-ion batteries and storage batteries.
What are some of the demand drivers for cobalt?
Joe Kaderavek: Cobalt is a necessary metal for the production of the latest generation, high density lithium-ion batteries.
Due to its high run-time properties, the use of cobalt has risen dramatically as portable lithium-ion battery usage accelerates and electric vehicles become a reality.
Electric vehicles include a broad definition of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), commercial trucks, buses and electric bikes.
Lithium-ion demand is also spurred on by increasing battery sizes, for example the Tesla Model S has a much larger 85kWh battery compared with the Toyota Prius 1kWh battery.
Add to this, solar storage batteries that are 100x bigger than the batteries in laptops and represent substantial demand growth for cobalt.
With 1.5 million solar photo voltaic panels already installed in markets like Australia, these markets are being targeted as consumers become aware of the long dated, tax free, energy hedged cashflows that the solar-storage combination produces.
As energy prices increase and cross over solar-storage costs, these batteries will find buyers, not just in urban households, but also as energy storage for microgrids and fringe of grid townships.
PROACTIVE INVESTORS: Thank-you Joe.