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Quantum Cobalt Corp. (CSE: QBOT) (FRANKFURT: 23B) is "One to Watch" - Cobalt Prices To Rocket As Tech Giants Scramble For Supplies - Seite 3

CEO Greg Burns, Director of Mergers and Acquisitions at Capital Investment Partners -- a multibillion-dollar fund out of Australia -- has led multiple large-scale deals, including the development of Coalspur Mines into a billion-dollar market cap company at one point.

Quantum Cobalt is also backed by big institutional money, most notably that of Hayward, arguably the most respected institution in Canada. Haywood will be advising on financing and mergers and acquisitions, and it's already a cleaning house for four Canadian dealers with more than CAD$5.5 billion in assets under administration.

#4 Supply and Demand: Gotta Love the Math

Cobalt makes up some 35 percent of the lithium-ion battery mix. And with 2 million EVs already produced, and numbers rising fast, this critical element is in short supply.

At a price of about $60,000 per metric ton right now -- cobalt is the most expensive of all battery metals. And the scramble is on for manufacturers to secure their own cobalt pipeline.

Tesla leads the way, planning to pump out 500,000 EVs a year, and every other major car maker has announced a definitive shift to electric.

• General Motors will launch 20 EV models by 2023.
• Renault will double its EV offerings in the next five years.
• Germany's Volkswagen plans to invest more than $24 billion in zero-emissions cars by 2030, producing 3 million EVS a year by 2025.
• VW Group (Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche) plans to invest a whopping $84 billion in EV development (over half going to battery production).
• Ford will release 13 new EV models by 2023.
• Daimler (which owns Mercedes-Benz) is planning 50 models by 2022.
• Volvo is going all electric by 2019 and anticipates selling one million EVs by 2025.
• Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, collaboratively, plan to have 12 EVs by 2022.

And battery "giga" factories to support these ambitious production targets are popping up all over the world.

The global lithium-ion battery market -- of which cobalt is a critical element -- will reach $77.42 billion by 2024.

China will render supply even tighter.

Right now, China is the largest consumer of cobalt in the world. China is by far the largest market for plug-ins, and it's also the largest producer.

Last year alone, 507,000 EVs and PHEVs were sold in China -- a 53 percent increase from 2015, and almost double the number sold in Europe and triple the number sold in the U.S.

In 2016, Chinese cobalt consumption rose by 5.3 percent year-on-year, hitting 45,900 tons -- equal to over 44 percent of all global consumption. From this year to 2021, China is expected to see a 12 percent increase in cobalt consumption, on the back of EV and battery growth.