In Panda Hill, Cradle has a 50% interest in a unique niobium asset in Tanzania. Not only its geology, but also the majority of its metallurgy is entirely conventional. As such, it is poised to become only the fourth mine in the world to produce a metal so unique that its price did not fall during the 2008/09 global financial crisis. Niobium is deemed ‘strategic’ by the US and ‘critical’ by the EU. Moreover, it is almost the only metal in the world in which China’s consumption is below trend for its GDP per head.
