Vale secures large-scale, long-term cobalt contracts ahead of EV revolution
London — For the past year, car manufacturers, battery makers and tech companies have been racing to secure long-term supplies of cobalt, the metal whose scarcity risks upending the electric-vehicle (EV) revolution. Now, Vale has struck the first truly large-scale, long-term contract to sell cobalt from its Voisey’s Bay mine in Canada to Wheaton Precious Metals and Cobalt 27 Capital Corporation. The $690m streaming deal has set a marker for what users such as BMW may have to pay for the silvery-blue metal — and it’s a pretty bullish one. The deal will see Wheaton and Cobalt 27 pay $390m and $300m, respectively, for shares of future cobalt output from Voisey’s Bay. Cobalt 27 will get about 730 tonnes a year from 2021 as the project ramps up and 850 tonnes a year once it’s operating fully from 2025, a company presentation showed. It will continue to pay Vale roughly 20% of the spot cobalt price for the metal it receives. Assuming the buyers are looking for at least a 10% return on the...
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