(2 minutes read)
· The Swiss mining giant Glencore, the brokerage and raw
materials extraction company, has entered into an agreement with
Samsung to supply cobalt hydroxide for the latter to manufacture
lithium-ion batteries.
· Glencore has also an agreement to supply cobalt to SK
Innovation of Korea, Umicore of Belgian, GEM of China and BMW of
Germany.
The Swiss mining giant Glencore, the brokerage and raw materials
extraction company, has entered into an agreement with Samsung to
supply cobalt hydroxide for the latter to manufacture lithium-ion
batteries.
The contract is for Glencore supplying 21,000 tonnes of cobalt
between 2020 and 2024. The metal will be sourced from its Katanga
operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Experts feel that
presently there is a demand dip for the batteries made out of lithium
since Chinese demand for raw materials has considerably dipped on
account of the coronovirus. But there are expectations that the demand
would pick up once the epidemic is under control.
Glencore has also an agreement to supply cobalt to SK Innovation of
Korea, Umicore of Belgian, GEM of China and BMW of Germany. There are
reports that Glencore is also in talks with Tesla of the US for its
new electric vehicle manufacturing facility in China. The
representatives of the two companies have been reportedly in
discussion for this purpose.
Glencore has earlier announced that it would put its other mine in
Mutanda in DRC under care and maintenance, mainly due to falling
cobalt prices and took a heavy hair cut of 25,000 tons in production
from that unit. This has led to spiraling of the prices to US$ 37,000
per tonne. It may be noted that the prices had zoomed to US$ 94,000
tons in 2018.
Coblat mining, of late, has come under tight scrutiny on account of
the high incidence of child labor. www.trendsnafrica.com ran a story
and an edit how the mines are employing children flouting all rules.
Against that one, law firm in the US had filed a litigation
implicating Tesla, Google, Microsoft for aiding and abetting the
death and serious injury of children, which had happened in a cobalt
mine in DRC, where basic safety facilities were lacking.
