7 7 Page 6 byproduct almost completely and is produced in lar ge measure in one country Democratic Republic of the Congo in the world Stormcrow Capital principal Jon Hykawy ob served at a recent conference in T o ronto So the supply risk from a geographi cal point of view as well as an eco nomic point of view is considerable Y ou don t see that in many of the oth er critical materials Meanwhile Cobalt s substantial old cobalt muck piles and tailings dumps are the focus of renewed interest I understand there are three Austra lian companies buying a lot of bever ages up in the Cobalt area right now the T oronto conference heard They see the potential to produce cobalt without the cost of having to mine the ore as having some attrac tion moving forward Palisade notes that in the Cobalt area silver cobalt mineralization has his torically occurred in steeplydipping carbonate veins Most of the silver cobalt has been extracted from veins within the Coleman sediments how ever the lower diabasevolcanics are now being revealed to host signifcant mineralization Cobalt was historically a nuisance for silver miners especially in smelting and refning However uses for cobalt began to emer ge with the improve ment of technology soon the element was being used in alloys and cutting tools W ith the threat of global war looming the merits of cobalt became apparent and the metal soon became one of the world s most revered elements And to the beneft of the T own of Co balt the Silver Camp became one of the few areas in the world to host pri mary cobalt mines By Gregory Reynolds Cobalt is in a defcit position And that has been good news for the T own of Cobalt in Northeastern On tario Palisade Research PR comments Looking at the state of current cobalt production there is not enough supply to satiate the coming green revolution There are no lar ge scale copper or nickel projects with cobalt byprod ucts poised to break ground in the near future There is nowhere for co balt to go but up Cobalt known as the blue metal hit a fveyear high earlier this year It is used in batteries along with lithium which is the new darling of the ener gy sector PR is owned by Palisade Global In vestments which provides informa tion on a variety of investment options and also invests in companies Last fall and early winter saw a stak ing and acquisition rush in and around the famous silver producing commu nity of Cobalt The mineral cobalt was considered waste rock during the period when only the precious metal silver was wanted In a cobalt overview PM notes the battery industry currently uses 42 per cent of global cobalt production a critical metal for Lithiumion cells The remaining 58 per cent is used in diverse industrial and military appli cations super alloys catalysts mag nets pigments that rely exclusively on the material Cobalt is the secret ingredient in lithi um ion batteries Batteryelectric vehi cles like T esla s contain approximately 50kg or about 10 of the total battery weight in every car Six companies are among those active in the Cobalt area LiCo Ener gy Met als Inc CobalT ech Mining Inc Co balt Power Group Cruz Cobalt Group Brixton and Castle Silver Resources No surprises then that Cobalt the town has been and is even now a mag net for frms hunting for vestiges of the district s semifamous silver lodes Cobalt the mineral Not so much even though the mineral did make a useful appearance after the silver boom died and the town faced ruin The solution was at hand and Cobalt found its sal vation in the mineral for which the town was named the mineral which mixed with the silver ore had been only a nuisance making the smelting and refning operations much more difcult Science the threat of war and improv ing technology all had a part in Co balt s revival The mineral cobalt long used in the form of an oxide in the ce ramic industries now found a host of other uses An interesting thing about the co balt market is the fact that cobalt is a Blue Metal cobalt shortage r eviving the T own of Cobalt COBAL T SPECIAL FEA TURE Page 6 Page 7 COBAL T SPECIAL FEA TURE W a l de n G r o up o f C o m p a ni e s 1 0 6 F i e l d i n g R o a d L i v e l y O n t a r i o P 3 Y 1 L 5 P h o n e 705 682 2084 F a x 705 682 2564 w w w w a l de ng r o up c a T h e W a l d e n G r o u p is a f a m ily o w n e d Su d b u r y b a s e d c o m p a n y t h a t h a s b e c o m e a s i g n i f i c a n t p l a y e r i n t h e m i n i n g a n d i n d u s t r i a l s e r v i c e s e c t o r s W a l d e n E q u i p m e n t o n e o f t h e f o u n d i n g c o m p a n i e s o f t h e W a l d e n G r o u p o f f e r s n e w a n d u s e d e q u i p m e n t o n a s a l e o r l e a s e b a s i s t o i t s e x t e n s i v e c l i e n t l i s t J S M a n u f a c t u r i n g a l s o p a r t o f t h e W a l d e n G r o u p m a n u f a c t u r e s h i g h q u a l i t y d e p e n d a b l e a n d d u r a b l e m a c h i n e s f o r d i s t r i b u t i o n t h r o u g h W a l d e n E q u i p m e n t W a l d e n E l e c t r i c a l a l s o p a r t o f t h e W a l d e n G r o u p o f C o m p a n ie s is a n in d u s t r ia l e le c t r ic a l c o n t r a c t o r E s t a b lis h e d in 1 9 8 8 W a l d e n E l e c t r i c a l h a s b e e n o f f e r i n g c o n t r a c t in d u s t r ia l e le c t r ic a l c o n s t r u c t i o n a n d m a i n t e n a n c e s e r v i c e s f o r m i n i n g a n d c o m m e r c i a l s e c t o r s a n d a r e a l s o E SA T SSA I SO a n d C W B C e r t i f i e d So m e s e r v i c e s p r o v i d e d b y W a l d e n E l e c t r i c a l i n c l u d e p o w e r d i s t ri b u t io n s y s t e m s in d u s t r ia l lig h t in g in d u s t r ia l a la r m s y s t e m s e le c t r ic a l s y s t e m m a in t e n a n c e i n f r a r e d t h e r m o g r a p h y t o l i s t a f e w T h e W a l d e n G r o u p h as w i t n e s s e d s i g n i f i c a n t g r o w t h i n r e c e n t y e a r s w i t h o p e r a t i o n s i n Su d b u r y Sp a n i s h a n d T im m in s O n t a r io a n d o u r I n t e r n a t i o n a l o p e r a t i o n s i n M e x i c o a n d A r g e n t i n a T h e c o m p a n y s a b i l i t y t o p r o v i d e m a c h i n e s a n d i n d u s t r i a l s e r v i c e s t h a t a r e c o s t e f f e c t i v e a n d d e s i g n e d f o r t h e e n d u s e r h a s r e s u l t e d i n t h e g r o u p s e x c e p t i o n a l g r o w t h a n d d i v e r s i f i c a t i o n i n t h e i ndust r i a l se c t o r s T h e W a l d e n G r o u p i s d e d i c a t e d t o p r o v i d i n g o u r c u s t o m e r s s u p e r i o r s e r v i c e s t h r o u g h o u r v a r i o u s d i v i s i o n s O u r o b j e c t i v e i s t o e x c e e d i n d u s t r y s t a n d a r d s i n a l l f a c e t s o f o u r w o r k a n d s e r v i c e s O u r e f f o r t s a r e d r i v e n b y o u r g o a l t o m e e t a l l o f o u r c u s t o m e r s n e e d s i n c l u d i n g q u a l i t y w o r k m a n s h i p s c h e d u l e a n d b u d g e t O u r w o r k e t h i c i s t o c o n d u c t a s a f e w o r k i n g e n v i r o n m e n t f o r a l l o f o u r e m p l o y e e s a n d c l i e n t s