Talga Resources sets up new business to manage Swedish cobalt assets

Talga Resources (ASX: TLG) is establishing a new separate company to look after its cobalt projects in northern Sweden, including the largest cobalt deposit in the country – Kiskama.

The Australian technology minerals company today announced it had commenced an internal restructure of its assets, which included setting up the wholly-owned subsidiary Talga Battery Metals AB.

Talga said the restructure would alleviate the current management team to allow it to focus on the commercialisation of its primary advanced graphite-graphene projects.

A separate management team will be formed to advance the Swedish cobalt assets, which are close to key emerging European battery markets, through exploration and development.

With the price of cobalt sky-rocketing by around 300% in the last two years, currently at US$88,750 per tonne, Talga believes this is an ideal time to create a cobalt-focused vehicle to take advantage of the “growing European battery market demand for locally and responsibly sourced cobalt”.

The company said the restructure would also increase funding, development and future commercialisation options for the cobalt projects, including a potential spin-off of the subsidiary.

“Talga’s board will carefully consider each potential commercialisation option for the cobalt once the restructure has been completed and further work has been undertaken on the assets,” it stated.

Talga said a final decision was unlikely to occur until early next year, allowing sufficient time to collect data, review and select the best commercialisation option.

Cobalt business

Talga’s newly established subsidiary Talga Battery Metals AB will manage the 100% owned Kiskama, Ahmavuoma, Lautakoski and Aitik East cobalt-copper projects, as well as the Masugnsbyn and Vathanvaara iron projects in Sweden.

Talga also has graphene-graphite projects in the country, though these are managed by another wholly-owned subsidiary, Talga Graphene AB.

Kiskama is Sweden’s largest cobalt deposit, discovered in 1972. It has also been found to contain valuable by-product copper and gold.

Talga said its future plans for this deposit included drilling, combined with the cutting and assaying of historic untested whole core, to potentially enable a JORC resource to be defined at a low cost.

Drilling is also planned at Ahmvuoma, as well as mapping and geophysical work at the other two cobalt projects.

Talga shares rose 3.45% following the news, though after a midday dip they were sitting back up at A$0.75 by afternoon trade.