Elizabeth, I hope your comment about the angels was in jest, you're actually 130 years old, or you have just taken up an extreme sport like sky diving without a parachute.
There are many potential producers of cobalt out there (Voisey's Bay, Africa, Australia, etc.). Some have serious social - political problems associated with them. These deposits may be geologically wonderful, but production is problematic as political forces switch often. Sulfide deposits are typically cheaper to produce, as they are generally less energy intensive than the laterite deposits. In times of high energy prices, one should be wary of these costs.
Nico is not without problems, but they seem relatively minor, or may even be potential benefits, such as the bismuth credits, or the lack of copper / nickel primary commodity. As far as I know, Nico is one of the few deposits advanced to this stage that is a cobalt, gold, bismuth target and is independent of copper and nickel prices. That is a good news bad news situation, as the revenue from these primary base metals is missing, but then the deposit can be modeled without these volatile price components.
Unfortunately cobalt and gold prices are quite low now, but bismuth prices are fairly good. Who knows what these prices will be in the future, but in forecasting commodity prices, like forecasting the weather, one can be relatively certain that there will be changes in the future. With low prices in the present, that usually means higher prices in the future (or so history tells us), but we'll never know when.
Dave |
