Koba successfully raised the full $9 million it was seeking at 20c per share, and has now begun trading under its own ticker.

 

The demerger, which was undertaken via the in-specie distribution of 20 million shares to New World shareholders, was approved in March.

 

The company's assets were primarily pulled together during the brief pre-pandemic cobalt rally, with the expectation that battery makers would be looking for ethical and reliable sources of the metal.

 

While major battery and electric vehicle maker Tesla has increasingly since switched to lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries to overcome supply fears around nickel and cobalt, LFP batteries are less efficient, so are now favoured for lower-end and shorter-range EVs.

 

However, cobalt and nickel are still preferred for more energy-dense batteries to support longer-range vehicles, so there is still a role significant role for cobalt, which is exactly the niche Koba is looking to settle into.

 

It has several projects in the Idaho Cobalt Belt, one of the western world's premier cobalt districts with potential for cobalt, copper, and gold, including Blackpine, an area that produced some 6000 tons of 2% copper in prior to 1965. 

 

Koba has purchased Blackpine for $1.76 million from ASX-listed Jervois Global.

 

While the project hasn't been drilled since 1996, when the focus was on high-grade copper, there is some 4km of strike to be tested that has seen only shallow exploration.

 

Koba's other main project is Colson the cobalt-copper project, which hosts the small Salmon Canyon mine that produced between 1964 and 1979.

 

Colson has seen limited drilling since the 1970s, although work in 2018 defined a 2km by 2km, high-tenor cobalt-copper soil anomaly at Long Tom. 

 

IP was completed, but New World's focus shifted to the Antler copper mine in Arizona, and the prospect was never drilled.

 

Koba also owns the secondary Elkhorn and Panther projects, which are nearology plays in the Idaho Cobalt Belt, and Goodsprings, in Nevada, which contains historical copper-cobalt shows.

 

Koba says its projects are some of the most advanced plays in the Idaho Belt, and drilling is already permitted.

 

The cobalt price more than doubled over the past year to some US$82,000 per tonne, and demand is expected to increase from 138,000t to 400,000t by 2030 as part of the green energy transition.