Australian company Jervois opens only cobalt mine in America to fuel electric vehicle revolution

From electric cars to fighter jets, the world can’t run without cobalt. An Australian company is making history in the US to challenge China’s control of supply.

Exclusive: An Australian company will open America’s only cobalt mine this week in a bid to challenge China’s control of the critical mineral needed to fuel the electric vehicle revolution.

Jervois’s Idaho mine will produce 2000 tonnes of cobalt every year – enough to help put 400,000 electric vehicles on the road.

Cobalt is also used in everything from smartphones to fighter jets, but about 75 per cent of the world’s supply comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, up to 90 per cent of which is controlled by China.

The Jervois mine has been praised by senior US politicians, with Idaho Congressman Ross Fulcher saying it is “a breath of fresh air and a long, long time coming”.

“To me, it’s made no sense whatsoever to depend on our enemies for critical minerals, especially when we have such blessings of those minerals in domestic areas,” he said.

The site of Jervois’s cobalt mine in Idaho’s Salmon-Challis National Forest. Picture: Supplied

In an exclusive interview, Jervois chief executive Bryce Crocker said the mine would meet about 10-13 per cent of America’s annual requirements for cobalt, although demand was expected to soar as car manufacturers sought to meet ambitious electric vehicle targets.

“The consumer rise of electric vehicles will put an enormous strain on demand into sectors that were traditional users of cobalt,” he said.

“We’re an Australian company and proud to be part of the solution … on achieving critical mineral security.”

Jervois chief executive officer Bryce Crocker. Picture: Supplied

The mine is expected to reach full production by February 2023, with 160 workers onsite deep in Idaho’s “truly spectacular” Salmon-Challis National Forest.

While Jervois has a seven-year permit, which took more than a decade to be approved, Mr Crocker said he was “very excited by the expansion potential” including what he hoped would be the first cobalt refinery in the US.

Construction work on Jervois’s cobalt mine in Idaho. Picture: Supplied

“We really want to provide the US government and obviously Jervois shareholders the opportunity to really understand how big the operation could be … because we do believe it will go for significantly longer than the initial mine life,” he said.

Last month, the Pentagon stopped accepting new F-35 jets after unauthorised cobalt from China was discovered in a magnet in the plane’s engine.

Mr Crocker pointed out that “in today’s modern warfare, everything that flies typically has or will have a battery”, with cobalt a key ingredient.

In a forum about the mine earlier this year, Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson backed Jervois’s efforts, saying he did not “want to see the United States forced into a position where we grow even more reliant on countries that in some cases are not too friendly to us”.