Pretty good observations.
Here are some of my thoughts:
In regards to Joe Kaderavek, he's a smart, measured and thorough guy and most importantly, from those who know him, he is said to be a straight shooter. From the beginning, he's not been interested in excessively promoting the stock until the fundamentals have been proven, and pretty much every step has turned out as planned. He also (for obvious reasons) understands what institutional investors are looking for and the institutions are yet to come on board - I am very confident in COB's management.
Agree, COB is a pure Cobalt play. It's other strong points are the highest grade of any Oz Co play going into the refinery; mine is in Australia; it has ex-China battery-ready end product, giving it a premium price; and it has a large enough resource to attract the attention of some big players and LG has already made its intentions clear at a very early stage (well played Joe).
But in terms of why I own it over others - It all comes back to the HPAL.
HPAL costs more to build and takes time - why? Because the pressures required are a huge 50 BAR at a temperature of 255 C - Now add Sulfuric acid to this environment - It is a complex setup requiring expensive materials and excellent autoclave build execution.
www.calderaengineering.com/industries-served/high...acid.../high-pressure-acid-leach
Clean Teq bought 2 of their autoclaves second hand, on the cheap from Vale's failed Goro (due to HPAL cost blowout) and if everything goes to plan for CLQ, CAPEX will still be over 1 billion.
In contrast, COB's pyrolysis requires much lower pressures (20 BAR - think your coffee machine) and no acid. Cost of build will be dramatically less and time to operation will be quicker, but IMO most importantly, there is significantly less risk in the build. There are multiple examples of failed HPAL builds where the CAPEX has blown out by several orders of magnitude (several billions of dollars). After ARL's PFS, I can't believe the stock has held up as well as it has (HPAL operation, assuming long term price $43/lb Co). As stated in an earlier post, I'm sure Robert Friedland will do his best to make it work, but I am not a CLQ investor purely due its HPAL risk (not its high market cap) and I don't give other Nickel Co laterite projects much of a chance.
COB has had a good run, but is still significantly undervalued IMO.
