Advertisement
Cobalt prices soar as China stockpiles metal used in smartphones, electric car batteries
- ‘Chinese companies continue to ship cobalt hydroxide from Africa, but there have been delays which have helped drive tightness in the market,’ analyst says
- China is the world’s biggest importer of cobalt, buying about 95,000 tonnes of it every year
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
1
The price of cobalt, which is used in batteries for electric vehicles, as well as smartphones, tablets and laptops, has risen by about 65 per cent since January.
A tonne of the metal sold for US$53,000 last week on the London Metal Exchange, its highest level since December 2018.
The price rally started late last year when China’s State Reserve Bureau announced plans to stockpile cobalt because of a boom in sales of electric vehicles in China and Europe.
One country that should be benefiting from the price rise is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which produces about two-thirds of the world’s cobalt, but supply shortages caused by logistical issues and fears of political instability in the Central African nation have hurt the industry. There are also concerns about the ethical sourcing of cobalt, including allegations of the use of child labour in mines.
Gregory Miller, an analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence in London, said the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic had slowed the movement of goods through the supply chain, including in the DRC.
Advertisement