I think the Nico deposit was always presented as a cobalt deposit with co-product to by-product gold, and by-product bismuth. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought that in recent times, Fortune had always presented it that way.
I do know that the recent economics of the deposit has excluded bismuth, because Fortune was aware, and you have pointed out, that the world consumption of bismuth would be flooded with Nico production.
What has changed recently is bismuth's expanding role in replacing lead. I don't know if it is significant, but Fortune is looking into it, as they should. In a worst case scenario, I expect they'll say "no, no reason to change the economic conditions that they used in the last evaluation."
Perhaps the price of cobalt will move to less than $8.00 a pound and stay there. Maybe gold will stay below $270 per ounce, or move lower. Maybe the large cobalt producers in the world, including Russia and some central African nations will resolve their differences, attract substantial investment capital, and commence regular, orderly shipments. The potential for lateritic cobalt is substantial, and this evolving technology will undoubtably work on a commercial basis outside of Cuba some day. Perhaps it will not affect the price of nickel, its principal product and the process will remain economic.
There are lots of external factors in the cobalt market, and they're not too bad. You can look at different scenarios where it doesn't make any sense to invest in any metals, let alone cobalt. Fortune has acquired and is developing a substantial deposit of cobalt and gold that happens to contain a lot of bismuth (and lanthanum and ....). Maybe it's economic, maybe not, but I wouldn't fault a company for looking, and then proceeding if the initial results are favourable.
Dave |
