Electra Battery Materials said on Tuesday it has signed a term sheet with WMC Group AG for a five year working capital and commercial partnership supporting its cobalt refinery at Temiskaming Shores in northern Ontario. The arrangement will finance cobalt feedstock purchases and corresponding battery grade cobalt sales, and WMC has committed to invest in Electra when definitive agreements are executed, according to the company’s GlobeNewswire release.
WMC will provide logistics management, cobalt market expertise and marketing support, and will act as buyer and exclusive marketing agent for cobalt sulfate production up to the refinery’s nameplate capacity. Electra chief executive Trent Mell said the agreement addresses working capital, logistics and product qualification as the company moves from construction and commissioning into operations.
The refinery is described by the company as North America’s first and only cobalt sulfate refinery. Electra launched an early works program last year to prepare for a restart of full scale construction, supported by strategic funding from the US and Canadian governments. The project stage remains restart preparation, not production.
Electra shares closed down 4.7 percent in Toronto on the announcement day. Mining.com put the company’s market capitalisation at C$73.8 million, which frames the scale of the working capital problem the WMC structure is meant to solve.