It's been a busy few months and I'm pleased to announce that I've completed a thorough review of the cobalt market which is available for purchase.
The report covers all aspects of the cobalt supply chain from mining, to refining, to end uses with supply and demand forecasts as well.
I'm offering the Executive Summary and a portion of the Introduction for free. You can download a PDF version here. The cost of the full report is $500 USD which can be paid through PayPal (or we can make arrangements for a wire if necessary). As an added bonus, I'll give the first 20 people to purchase the report an opportunity for a 20 minute phone call to ask any question they want regarding the outlook for the cobalt market.
To be clear, this is not a "stockpicking" report and so you won't find any "flavor of the month" stock picks here. What you will find is in depth data and insights into the cobalt supply chain and how the companies along it are shifting their business to capture the anticipated high growth of downstream industries.
For more info on purchasing the report, please email me at info@house-mountain.com.
Thanks,
Chris
By Chris Berry (@cberry1)
For a PDF version of this note, please click here.
Earlier this week, the deal in which China Molybdenum Co. (603993:SHA) agreed to pay Freeport McMoRan (FCX:NYSE) $2.65 billion for FCX’s African copper assets reaffirms our view that asset shedding from the FCX project portfolio must continue (See the press release here).
FCX, with a $13B market capitalization, made a bad bet in diversifying into the oil business at the cyclical peak and now must reckon with roughly $20B in debt on their balance sheet. The debt maturity profile of the company is shown below:
By Chris Berry (@cberry1)
For a PDF version of this note, please click here.
Regular readers will know of my optimism regarding cobalt. The fundamentals look sound in a metals market that, already under pressure, appears headed lower. To wit:
· Cobalt demand is growing by 6% overall with demand in the battery supply chain growing by some estimates at a CAGR of 10% out to 2020 - a good chink of the overall market. Current estimates for battery usage put the actual tonnage demanded at between 35,000 and 40,000 tpy. This is driven almost exclusively by cobalt’s use in the cathode of the lithium ion battery.
· Cobalt is mainly a by-product, produced as a consequence of nickel and copper mining rendering cobalt production hostage to the bullish or bearish tendencies of these other metals.
By Chris Berry (@cberry1)
For a PDF of this note, please click here.
To anyone involved in commodity markets, the events of the past two weeks should make one thing abundantly clear: a new paradigm in commodity investing is in play. The most recent iteration of the commodity super cycle (2001-2011) was unlike anything many of us had ever seen. Unfortunately, the aftermath (2011-????) and subsequent correction may also be unlike anything we’ve ever seen (at least in terms of duration and intensity). I’m fully aware of the cyclical nature of the commodities business, but clearly the greater the bull market, the more severe the bear market.
Here is the Bloomberg Commodity Index since 2011, down 28% over the past year alone:
