One of the leading mining startups backed by billionaires including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, KoBold Metals is confident in the potential to discover some of the most sought-after energy transition metals, CNBC reports.
This comes shortly after a Silicon Valley metals prospecting company announced a rare discovery of a huge copper deposit in Zambia. Josh Goldman, president of KoBold Metals, told CNBC in an interview that the company’s investors were excited about the discovery, especially at a time when the mining industry is struggling to keep up with the shift to energy-intensive metals. Goldman said via videoconference:
They are feeling delighted about this news because this is what we set out to do. The point of the company is to discover, find and develop mineral resources that we need for the energy transition. This is the first major win for the company, and it is among the most extraordinary ore bodies in the world.
KoBold Metals says it is using artificial intelligence to create a “treasure map” to help find new deposits of materials such as copper, lithium, cobalt and nickel. The company currently has more than 60 projects in the exploration stage in several countries. Josh Goldman claimed:
The point of the company is to be serially successful in exploration — and to improve exploration success overall and to decrease the capital intensity of discovery.
The startup’s investors include US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Norwegian energy giant Equinor, the world’s largest mining company BHP and Breakthrough Energy, a climate and technology fund founded by Bill Gates in 2015. Breakthrough Energy’s backers include Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, Richard Branson of Virgin Group, Jack Ma of Alibaba and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.
Goldman said KoBold Metals is now advancing its Mingomba project in Zambia, which it expects to start producing copper within 10 years, and on discovering the next trove of critical minerals. He noted:
The Central African copper belt is the part of the world where you can find things of this extraordinary grade. And that’s why we are there. The geology is extraordinary. It is not just that there haven’t been deposits like this. It’s that there are more to be found. Here is Mingomba — and then where is the next Mingomba after this? This is the part of the world and style of deposit where we can find resources of this scale and quality, and Zambia provides an operating environment that is really extraordinary.
Copper is widely used in renewable energy infrastructure, energy storage systems and electric vehicles and is therefore in high demand. Zambia is Africa’s second largest copper producer after the Democratic Republic of Congo.
KoBold Metals said most copper currently mined has an ore grade of around 0.6 per cent, while the Mingomba deposit has a copper grade of more than 5 per cent. Goldman Noted:
That means that you have to mine a lot less rock in order to get the same amount of copper. For a 0.5% ore deposit, you have to mine 200 kilograms of rock to get 1 kilogram of copper. For a 5% ore deposit, you have to mine 20 kilograms of rock to get 1 kilogram of copper. So, that’s a lot less Earth that you have to disturb, that’s a lot less waste that you create.
KoBold Metals plans to publicly list its shares in the next three to four years. Goldman said:
We do expect in due course that being a public company is likely going to be the best way to finance the business. The point of the company is to be serially successful in exploration — and to improve exploration success overall and to decrease the capital intensity of discovery. We think the potential for discovery is great. There is a lot more to be found in Zambia.
