Investors loved the news that Ausmon Resources has secured two new cobalt and nickel exploration licences in New South Wales.

On Friday morning nearly 27 million shares changed hands, which sent the share price up 40 per cent to an intra-day peak of 1.4c.

The new permits are part of Ausmon’s (ASX:AOA) recently acquired Broken Hill cobalt and nickel project.

The Broken Hill project is near the Thackaringa project, where Cobalt Blue Holdings (ASX:COB) and Broken Hill Prospecting (ASX:BPL) announced a major cobalt resource upgrade and partnership with multinational conglomerate LG International earlier this year.

The permits were granted to New Base Metals, which Ausmon revealed it was buying in early April.

The company is waiting on the granting of a third permit.

Ausmon Resources (ASX:AOA) shares over the past three months.
Ausmon Resources (ASX:AOA) shares over the past three months.

Prior to getting its hands on these new cobalt projects in New South Wales and Queensland, Ausmon was focused on gold, silver, copper and zinc.

The heat around cobalt has prompted many junior players to break into the commodity.

And investors are equally as keen to back them.

Since Ausmon first revealed it had its eye on some cobalt-prospective land in early April its share price has more than tripled to a peak of 2.2c.

Cobalt is one of the much-loved battery metals that has witnessed a rapid rise in price on significant supply constraints.

Analysts remain bullish despite Tesla boss Elon Musk recently declaring he would phase out the use of cobalt in his electric car batteries.

Battery metal price analyst Benchmark Mineral Intelligence still expects the use of cobalt in lithium-ion batteries to triple between now and 2026.