Mercuria eyes equity in African assets, new metals boss says
“You will see us very present in Africa and putting our money where our mouth is in respect of the Copperbelt,” Kostas Bintas said.
Blackwater founder Erik Prince aims to raise as much as $500 million to invest in metals needed for making the batteries that power electric vehicles (EVs), the Financial Times reports.
Prince, who besides starting the controversial private security company is known for have been an informal campaign adviser to US President Donald Trump, said the fund will bring unexplored deposits into production and then sell them to large miners after four to five years.
The fund will focus mainly on cobalt, copper and lithium assets located mainly in Africa and Asia, Prince told FT.com.
“For all the talk of our virtual world, the innovation, you can’t build these vehicles without minerals that come from generally weird, hard-to-access places,” he said.
Metals such as cobalt, lithium, nickel and copper have seen demand soar in recent years as the shift away from cars powered by fossil fuels gains momentum and mining companies are investing billions of dollars into developing deposits of those key commodities.
Experts expect the need for lithium from battery makers alone to jump 650% by 2027, while overall demand is forecast to rise more than threefold in the next nine years.
Prices, however, are projected to drop in the early 2020s as a result of an ever-rising number of projects expected to come online.
Wave of lithium supply coming online. (Source: BMO Capital Markets.)
Prince sold Blackwater in 2010, after it was hit with a series of lawsuits. Since then, he’s been running Frontier Services Group, which provides integrated security, logistics and insurance services in frontier markets and is backed by Hong Kong investor Chun Shun Ko and China’s CITIC Group.
Frontier has also invested in a bauxite mine in Guinea, and identified a copper and cobalt deposit in the Congo.
Prince’s sister Elisabeth Dee DeVos is Trump’s education secretary.
4 Comments
Paul Govan
What of ultra-energy-dense supercapacitors , Mr. Prince ? No cobalt, nickel or lithium needed. No rare minerals or metals required. A million charge cycles. So disruptive that almost noone wants the public to be talking about them. Will vested interests linked to lithium batteries do everything in their power to slow down the development and mass production of said energy-dense supercapacitors ? Probably. Aided and abetted by a media that looks the other way and stays conveniently silent of course…
Paul G(EVUK)
Andy Whitten
The 200mpg carburetor conspiracy has finally reached the battery market. Maybe the oil companies will now release this “secret” carburetor in order to stay relevant in the face of the battery. Thermodynamics be damned. We now have new conspirators to slay!
KudzaiKazonga
WE HAVE CHINA HERE IN AFRICA WHICH IS ALREADY PARTNERING WITH A SOES. SO UNCLE SAM STAY WITH TRAMPSHITHOLE THERE.
David
Not the sort of synergy I was hoping to see – Frontier Services making money doing security at mines they invested in and Prince referring to these sovereign nations as “weird” places (read: “not people with rights like us”).