Cobalt Blue
Processing partner for the first US nodule refinery
ASX: COBOTC: CBBHFFounded 2016
Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited is an Australian minerals processing developer, and most of its business is on land: the Kwinana Cobalt Refinery in Western Australia, the Broken Hill Cobalt Project in New South Wales, and a copper-silver-zinc project at Halls Creek. It is covered here for Project Infinity, the consortium it formed with Glomar Minerals in March 2026 to build the first commercial polymetallic nodule refinery in the United States. Cobalt Blue is the processing half of that venture: it applies its patented hydrometallurgical flowsheet to Clarion-Clipperton Zone nodules and runs the testwork and the studies, while Glomar handles the harvesting, shipping and permitting. Nodule samples are being tested at its Broken Hill Technology Centre.
News and articles
Daily closes over the past year, to October 22, 2026.
Overview
- Incorporated in Australia in 2016, with its head office in North Sydney, New South Wales. Its shares are quoted on the ASX as COB and trade in the United States on the OTC Pink market as CBBHF.
- The company applied during the June 2026 quarter to upgrade that United States quotation to the OTCQB market, and expected the outcome during the September 2026 quarter. It has announced no outcome, and its 2026 annual report, released September 24, 2026, does not mention the application.
- It is a developer, not a producer. Its June 2026 quarterly reports no production or development activity, and A$0.2 million of exploration and evaluation spending for the quarter, mostly technical services and study costs.
- The Kwinana Cobalt Refinery is the priority. It would be Australia’s first cobalt refinery, at a proposed nameplate 3,000 tpa of cobalt sulphate in stage one, rising to 6,000 tpa in stage two.
- Kwinana is not yet funded. Final engineering design was ~90% complete in August 2026, Western Australian permits are granted and the feedstock contract is signed, leaving offtake and a financing package as the last steps before a final investment decision.
- That decision has slipped. The annual report for the year to June 30, 2025 targeted a final investment decision for December 31, 2025; the June 2026 quarterly still describes offtake and financing discussions as continuing.
- The Broken Hill Cobalt Project is the long-term feedstock. It is Australia’s largest undeveloped primary cobalt resource at 126.5 Mt, and a preliminary feasibility study aimed at a smaller starter case began in the June 2026 quarter.
- Project Infinity is the growth workstream and the reason this site covers the company. Cobalt Blue says the consortium requires no near-term capital contribution from it, and that the scale-up from Kwinana is ~20x on feed throughput.
- Money is tight. The company held A$4.3 million of cash at June 30, 2026 and reported 3.48 quarters of funding available in its Appendix 5B. The audited accounts for the year to June 30, 2026 report a material uncertainty that may cast significant doubt over its ability to continue as a going concern.
- There were 587,464,817 ordinary shares on issue at September 7, 2026, with 127.6 million unquoted options and 5.3 million performance rights, for 720.4 million on a fully diluted basis.
Project Infinity
The consortium with Glomar Minerals, announced March 29, 2026. It is a processing venture: Glomar brings the licences and the offshore extraction, Cobalt Blue brings the flowsheet.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| What it is | A proposed polymetallic nodule processing facility in the United States, described by both parties as the first commercial plant of its kind |
| Structure | A consortium agreement signed March 29, 2026. The first contract for work under it, covering Cobalt Blue’s part of a Preliminary Economic Analysis, was announced September 28, 2026 |
| Cobalt Blue’s role | Developing and testing the process flowsheet to recover manganese, cobalt, copper, nickel and titanium from nodules at the Broken Hill Technology Centre, and running the pre-feasibility and feasibility studies for the plant |
| Glomar’s role | Harvesting the nodules, shipping and logistics, and permitting, all outside the consortium agreement |
| Proposed capacity | ~200,000 tpa of polymetallic nodules and 7,500 tpa of cobalt hydroxide. This is the nameplate figure the pre-feasibility studies are built on, not a production target: Cobalt Blue issued a clarification to the ASX on June 25, 2026 saying so, and that investors should not rely on it. |
| Expected products | Manganese sulphate, cobalt, nickel and copper. An April 2026 webinar put the plant at ~40,000 tonnes of manganese sulphate, 1,000 to 2,000 tonnes of cobalt, and ~1,000 tonnes each of nickel and copper. |
| Where | Site selection has narrowed to four finalist locations across Louisiana, North Carolina and Texas. The company has also described the likely location as the United States Gulf Coast. |
| Timing | The August 2026 corporate presentation targets a plant by the end of 2028. The April 2026 webinar put start-up at around the end of 2028 or the start of 2029. |
| Cost to Cobalt Blue | The company says the agreement requires no near-term capital contribution from it, and that its early work creates near-term revenue through technical testwork and engineering services |
| Feedstock source | Glomar’s wholly owned subsidiary UK Seabed Resources holds two International Seabed Authority licence areas covering ~133,000 km² of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone |
| Status of the testwork | The first Clarion-Clipperton Zone nodule samples reached the Broken Hill Technology Centre by June 2026 and bench-scale testwork to set baseline design criteria is under way |
| Preliminary Economic Analysis | Glomar has contracted Cobalt Blue to deliver the metallurgical testwork, process flowsheet, AACE Class V capital and operating cost estimates and site layout for the four candidate sites, for US$150,000. The contract was announced September 28, 2026, and the analysis is targeted for completion in the fourth quarter of 2026. |
| Status of the resource work | Glomar began a 65-day geological and biological survey of its licence area aboard the RV Tangaroa, departing Tahiti on July 29, 2026, run with Earth Sciences New Zealand |
The technical claim underneath the venture is that Cobalt Blue’s flowsheet, developed over more than five years for cobalt, transfers to a manganese-iron feedstock. The company states it has demonstrated >90% extraction of cobalt, nickel and manganese from nodules. The processing step is the gap the venture is aimed at: nodules have never had a commercial-scale metallurgical pathway.
The two parties do not spell Glomar’s corporate form the same way. The March 2026 announcement names Glomar Minerals LLC; the August 2026 corporate presentation sources its Project Infinity slide to Glomar Minerals Inc. The 2026 annual report uses both forms, and the September 28, 2026 contract announcement names Glomar Minerals LLC.
The Kwinana Cobalt Refinery
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| What it is | A proposed cobalt sulphate and cobalt metal refinery at Kwinana, south of Perth in Western Australia, which would be Australia’s first |
| Ownership as proposed | Iwatani 30% and Cobalt Blue 70%, subject to final agreement. A binding pre-final-investment-decision consortium deed with Iwatani Australia was executed in April 2025. |
| Capacity as proposed | 3,000 tpa of cobalt sulphate in stage one and 6,000 tpa in stage two, the nameplate figures the engineering is based on |
| Feedstock | A contract with Glencore signed in May 2025 for a minimum 3,750 tonnes of cobalt hydroxide, being 750 tonnes in year one and 1,500 tonnes in each of years two and three, which the company puts at 50% of the refinery’s initial feedstock requirement. The material comes from Glencore’s Kamoto Copper Company and Mutanda operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. |
| Engineering | Tetra Tech Coffey was appointed in July 2024 and final design was ~90% complete in August 2026 |
| Permits | Western Australian permits are granted. The Works Approval permit was issued in September 2025. |
| What is outstanding | Offtake agreements and a financing package. The company says financing progress remains subject to satisfactory progress on offtake. |
| Economics as last published | A November 2025 update put post-tax net present value at ~A$155 million, an internal rate of return of 32% and total free cash flow at ~A$503 million, on a 100% owned stage-one basis. A capital stack estimate from October 2024 assumed ~A$83 million of equity and ~A$60 million of working-capital debt for a combined stage one and two development. |
| Product qualification | Cobalt sulphate meeting pCAM specification was confirmed in March 2026, and sample production for market evaluation continues |
The Australian assets
| Asset | What it is | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Broken Hill Cobalt Project | A cobalt-pyrite deposit near Broken Hill, New South Wales, held 100%. Mineral resource of 126.5 Mt at 867 ppm cobalt equivalent, for 87.3 kt of contained cobalt, 9,510 kt of sulphur and 17.0 kt of nickel, at a 275 ppm cut-off and unchanged at June 30, 2025. | A preliminary feasibility study began in the June 2026 quarter, targeting a starter case with a minimum 10-year mine life and lower upfront capital, for completion in the fourth quarter of 2026. The draft environmental impact statement is ~80% complete. A definitive feasibility study was paused in February 2024 on commodity prices and capital costs. |
| Broken Hill Technology Centre | The company’s own pilot and demonstration plant, described as a A$15 million-plus investment, covering feed handling, kiln, leaching, solvent extraction, crystallisation and filtration. | Operating, and the physical link between the Australian business and Project Infinity: the nodule testwork runs here. A co-development program with CSIRO on recovering graphite from battery black mass, due to conclude in the third quarter of 2026, is now expected to conclude in the fourth quarter. |
| Halls Creek Project | A copper-silver-zinc project over ~250 km² in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, in joint venture with AuKing Mining. Onedin holds an indicated resource of 4.8 Mt at 0.7% copper, 3.1% zinc and 38 g/t silver; Sandiego holds 3.7 Mt at 1.4% copper, 4.2% zinc and 25 g/t silver. | Cobalt Blue holds a 51% beneficial interest, having met the minimum expenditure threshold, and has exercised its right to earn a further 24% by spending another A$1.5 million by June 30, 2028. A scoping study update adding silver recovery is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026. |
Presentations
PDF
Current deck. The capital structure, the Kwinana economics, the Project Infinity slide and the resource tables.
PDF
The cash position, the state of the Kwinana work before a final investment decision, the nodule testwork and the tenement schedule.
PDF
The site shortlist and the arrival of the first Clarion-Clipperton Zone nodule samples at Broken Hill.
The consortium documents and accounts (8 documents)
Ownership
The most recent holder list the company has published is dated September 7, 2026, in its 2026 annual report, when 587,464,817 shares were on issue. Cobalt Blue reported no substantial holder at all: the register is retail and nominee heavy, and the largest names below are custodians rather than beneficial owners.
| Holder | Shares | Percent | As reported in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Citicorp Nominees Pty Limited | 56,557,312 | 9.63 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026. A custodian. |
| BNP Paribas Nominees Pty Ltd, Clearstream account | 19,398,976 | 3.30 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026. A custodian. |
| BNP Paribas Nominees Pty Ltd, retail client account | 14,965,889 | 2.55 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026. A custodian. |
| HSBC Custody Nominees (Australia) Limited | 11,153,837 | 1.90 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026. A custodian. |
| David Reginald Howe | 9,160,000 | 1.56 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026 |
| Minerals and Residues Pty Ltd, Andrew and Lisa Tong family account | 8,778,446 | 1.49 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026. The chief executive’s family vehicle. |
| Mandala Holdings Pty Ltd | 8,000,000 | 1.36 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026 |
| BNP Paribas Noms Pty Ltd | 7,273,071 | 1.24 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026. A custodian. |
| St Ives No5 Pty Ltd | 7,041,754 | 1.20 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026 |
| Josef and Ariane Kaderavek, family account | 5,901,982 | 1.00 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026. The chairman and his spouse. |
| Katie Elizabeth Reece | 5,500,000 | 0.94 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026 |
| American Rare Earths Limited | 4,731,883 | 0.81 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026. Ranked 13th. |
| Lind Global Fund III LP | 3,271,429 | 0.56 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026. Ranked 18th, and the counterparty to the September 2025 placement agreement. |
| Top 20 holders in total | 188,186,275 | 32.03 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026 |
| All remaining holders | 399,278,542 | 67.97 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026 |
| Shares outstanding at September 7, 2026 | 587,464,817 | 100 | Annual report 2026 |
Group ownership
| Group | Shares | Percent | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Substantial holders, being holders above 5% who have lodged a notice | 0 | 0 | Annual report 2026. The company reports the substantial holder register as nil. |
| Custodians and nominees inside the top 10 | 109,349,085 | 18.61 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026, summed and computed. Citicorp, HSBC, the two BNP Paribas Nominees accounts and BNP Paribas Noms. |
| Chairman and chief executive, through their family vehicles | 14,680,428 | 2.50 | Annual report 2026, at September 7, 2026, summed and computed. The Tong family account and the Kaderavek family account. A further 2,785,094 shares sit in a Kaderavek superannuation account ranked 20th. The remuneration report puts the chairman’s total holding at 8,687,076 shares and the chief executive’s at 8,800,384 at June 30, 2026. |
Dilution is the thing to watch. Alongside the 587.5 million ordinary shares at August 21, 2026 there were 127.6 million options in four tranches, struck between A$0.08 and A$0.20 and expiring between April 2027 and September 2028, and 5.3 million performance rights, for 720.4 million shares fully diluted. The company issued 135,483,112 new shares in the six months to December 31, 2025, and raised A$5.3 million in a placement in December 2025.
Document archive
Cobalt Blue reports to the ASX, which publishes no filing index this site can mirror. Its corporate presentation, quarterly report, accounts and the Project Infinity announcements are hosted here and linked above. Its releases are in the news table at the top of this page.