Missouri Cobalt close to finishing key facility for cobalt, nickel production

US miner Missouri Cobalt LLC said that its project to build a new hydrometallurgical facility has reached the final construction stage, taking the company closer to beginning production of large-scale quantities of battery-grade cobalt and nickel.

The facility site is located in Fredericktown, a city in Madison County, Missouri, where Missouri Cobalt operates a mine rich in recoverable cobalt, nickel and copper.

The company, which has set a goal for itself to become a leading North American supplier of cobalt and nickel for electric vehicle and lithium-ion batteries, expects the new facility to quadruple current run-rate production volumes.

Missouri Cobalt already produces high-grade cobalt at a pilot hydrometallurgical facility in Earth City, Missouri, which started operation in 2020. Production of a cobalt-nickel-copper concentrate started at the company’s Fredericktown facility in 2019.

Billing itself as the only vertically integrated cobalt producer in North America, the Missouri-based miner says it wants to supply clean, domestic and ethically sourced battery metals, free from child labour and human rights abuses that it sees as currently plaguing the cobalt supply chain.

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