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German car manufacturer BMW said, Thursday, that it plans to buy cobalt from Moroccan mining company Managem Group for the production of its electric vehicles. The deal is part of a five-year contract worth around 100 million euros, said Andreas Wendt, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for Purchasing and Supplier Network.
«Cobalt is an important raw material for electromobility. By signing this supply contract with Managem today, we are continuing to secure our raw material needs for battery cells», Wendt added.
BMW said the deal would supply a fifth of the cobalt it needs for its EV production, the same source said, adding that the rest will be sourced from Australia.
The deal comes after the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding on the direct purchase of cobalt from Morocco in Marrakesh in January 2019.
During the same year, BMW announced for the first time that it plans to purchase cobalt from Morocco. After the London Metal Exchange (LME), a commodities exchange that deals in metal futures, the German company said it will be sourcing cobalt from Morocco and Australia.
The decision came after BMW said that it would stop «purchasing cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo with the introduction of the fifth generation of electric vehicles from 2020/21» and ban brands that are «not responsibly sourced by 2022 to help root out metal tainted by child labor or corruption».
