Over the last year much investor attention in the speculative space has been focused on lithium and the lithium price as miners such as Galaxy Resources Ltd (ASX: GXY) and Orocobre Ltd (ASX: ORE) gained valuations well in excess of $1 billion.
The excitement over lithium exists because it's a required ingredient in the batteries used to power electric vehicles.
The theory being that as demand for electric vehicles explodes so should demand for lithium and shares in lithium miners.
However, there's another under-the-radar ingredient mining commodity also required to power electric vehicles and smart phones among other common goods.
Cobalt prices are hard to track, but the ASX has a host of speculative cobalt miners hoping to profit from potentially soaring prices and demand. Take a look at a few below:
- The Ardea Resources (ASX: ARL) share price is down 63% over the past year
- The Havilah Resources Ltd (ASX: HAV) share price is down 37% over the past year
- The Conico Ltd (ASX: CNJ) share price is just 1.7 cents and has last more than half its value over the last year
- The Cobalt Blue Holdings Ltd (ASX: COB) share price is down around 74% over the last year
- The Corazon Mining Ltd (ASX: CZN) share price is less than 1 cent and has been on a downward spiral
As we can see cobalt miners have tracked the cobalt price lower recently and its future direction tends to divide professional commodity analysts and other credible observers.
According to a recent article in The Financial Times the cobalt price is set to soar or fall depending on who you ask, with a key player in the cobalt mining industry being the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The DRC produces more than 3x the amount of Australia already and at a low cost, with some analysts claiming it will flood the market. Others though argue it's too unstable to be relied upon and therein lies Australian miners' opportunity.
As such speculators should be sure to do extensive research into what are the best cobalt miners on the ASX before taking the plunge if they choose to. Recently, Havilah Resources and Ardea Resources were two of the largest pure play cobalt miners by market cap.
