"Cobalt has never been sustainable at these prices".... well there has never been an EV revolution shaking up the automobile industry before, has there? Analysts often try to use past performances to try and predict the future, but I think this is folly and a bit of a lazy approach! Instead of thinking really hard, taking all the factors into rational consideration, they just look at what happened in the past and say "hey, it's gonna do the same thing again".... job done!
As for cobalt, let me lay it out for you:
- Forget about what it has done in the past, as far as the commodity price is concerned. Nothing repeats itself 100%.
- You, and a lot of others have said, there "could be" a new technology "coming" that will take it out of the battery equation. Where is it? Now, let's plant our feet firmly on the ground here, let's be realistic and see what is there for all to see. Don't try to look in dark corners for a glimmer of the bogeyman ... just look at what is obvious. The truth is, at this moment, there is a big Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Cobalt was there in the very first lithium battery ever invented that did not catch fire like hay, and it is still there to this day. There is no replacement for cobalt in lithium batteries, bud!
- As I said before, the total cobalt available on Earth is actually not enough to supply the complete electrification of all vehicles. It's there in google, you can get the numbers easily. You only need to see how many vehicles there are currently on roads globally, the amount of cobalt needed per EV on average, and the total known cobalt reserves globally. Put the numbers together and you'll see what I mean.
In my opinion, the value proposition of cobalt as a commodity is just staring at us in the face, just that a lot of people like to over-think things and come up with all sorts of bogeyman scenarios that aren't even real. Anyway, as usual, DYOR and good luck!
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