Triple listed Jervois Global has closed the $160-million buy of Finland-based Freeport Cobalt.
Jervois in July this year struck an agreement to acquire Freeport Cobalt, which is the cobalt refining and speciality products business retained by US-headquartered Freeport-McMoRan and Toronto-listed Lundin Mining following the sale of certain refining and battery materials activities to Belgium’s Umicore in 2019.
The business has contractual rights to about 40% of the Kokkola refinery capacity, thus it can toll refine 6.25-million tons a year of cobalt at cost until 2093. It also includes a downstream cobalt products manufacturing facility.
The transaction consolidates Jervois’ nickel and cobalt strategy, building on its existing Idaho Cobalt Operations (ICO), in the US, and the São Miguel Paulista (SMP) nickel and cobalt refinery in São Paulo, Brazil, which Jervois has agreed to acquire.
Jervois said that the acquisition had the potential to transform the company into the second largest producer of refined cobalt outside China, building on existing assets.
The acquisition is expected to transform Jervois into a global, vertically integrated cobalt and nickel company of scale, and provides the company with an established global market platform from which to operate.