Serving as Waterfield Group chairman, J. Randall (Randy) Waterfield oversees a leading global investment firm that spans divisions such as private equity, merchant banking, and asset management. J. Randall (Randy) Waterfield additionally holds a leadership position with Missouri Cobalt, LLC, an enterprise that owns and operates a Fredericktown cobalt mine that represents the country’s largest reserves of the metallic element.
As explored in a recent Council on Foreign Relations paper, the demand for cobalt, typically obtained as a nickel and copper mining byproduct, has surged in recent years. This reflects its combination of hardness, strong magnetism, and resistance to corrosion and extreme heat. A major manufacturing sector that relies on cobalt is the production of batteries for electric vehicles.
Each electric car battery requires between 5 and 15 kilograms of cobalt, which is roughly 1,000 times the amount used in batteries for smartphones. While electric cars are less than two percent of all car sales, they are projected to reach 40 percent within two decades. This has resulted in global cobalt demand tripling over the past nine years, and this same trajectory of demand increase is forecast over the foreseeable future. With 46,000 metric tons having been produced in 2017, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence predicts that this number will reach 190,000 metric tons in 2026.
With Australia, Cuba, the Philippines, Canada, and Zambia possessing the world’s largest reserves, the US is relatively low on the list, with an estimated 23,000 metric tons in reserve. Utilizing the United States’ cobalt reserves is a move that helps enhance national security. Toward that end, in late 2017 President Donald J. Trump issued a directive for federal agencies to identify new “critical mineral” sources and boost mining and production capacities.
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