Australia’s Celsius Resources, which made Namibia’s first cobalt discovery, is aiming to start production from the remote mine in 2020, says the company’s MD. Cobalt is a key component in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries used in the electric-car market, but most of it comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country racked by violence, prompting a scramble for alternative sources. "We have found cobalt in Namibia and a lot of it," said Celsius MD Brendan Borg. "Everywhere we drill a hole along this prospective horizon we find cobalt." Celsius will declare its maiden resource — the initial estimate of how much is economically extractable — around the end of March on the deposit, which is in the remote northwest of Namibia, which is also a significant diamond and uranium producer. Rio Tinto drilled in the area about 100km south of the Angola border in the early 1990s but was not looking for cobalt. The deposit is in a remote region but is close to decent infrastructure, wh...
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