The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service (USFS) will proceed with the preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS), which is required to support a federal decision regarding Formation Capital‘s (FCO-T) Idaho cobalt project.
The wholly owned project is located in the Salmon-Challis national forest in Idaho’s Lemhi County.
The USFS has selected a Montana-based consulting firm, Hydrometrics, to complete the review, which will be solely funded by Formation Capital.
The project is expected to produce 1,500 tonnes cobalt annually over a nine-year life. This would be about 5% of world production. Mineralization remains open along strike and to depth.
Presently the U.S., which constitutes more than 40% of the cobalt market, depends on Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Russia for much of its cobalt needs.
In March, Formation Capital completed a private placement of 3.1 million units at 40 each, for gross proceeds of $1.25 million, to fund the project’s development. Each unit comprises one share and half a share purchase warrant. One full warrant allows the holder to buy one share of the company for 50 until March 22, 2003. All of the shares and warrants included in the units are subject to a hold period in British Columbia. This expires July 22.
Cobalt is used in super-alloys for air and land-based gas turbine engines and in the fast-growing market for batteries for portable electronic devices and gasoline/electricity-powered vehicles. They are also used in computer hard disks, semiconductors, solar collectors and medical implements.
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