Cobalt

Cobalt is the most geographically concentrated major commodity on earth. The Democratic Republic of the Congo produced roughly 230,000 of the world's roughly 310,000 tonnes of mined cobalt in 2025, about 73 percent, almost all of it as a byproduct of copper mining on the Katanga copperbelt. Two companies dominate: Glencore, the long-time leader, and China's CMOC, which overtook it in 2023 after ramping the giant Tenke Fungurume and Kisanfu mines. Indonesia has emerged as the clear number two country, recovering cobalt as a byproduct of nickel HPAL plants. Byproduct economics matter: most cobalt supply responds to copper and nickel prices, not to the cobalt price, which is why cobalt oversupplies can persist for years.

Demand is a tug of war between batteries and chemistry. Cobalt stabilizes nickel-rich cathodes, and batteries take roughly 70 percent of supply, with superalloys for jet engines and hard metals taking much of the rest. But the rise of cobalt-free LFP chemistry, which passed 40 percent of the global EV battery market by 2024 and dominates in China, has structurally cut cobalt out of the marginal battery. Prices reflected it: from roughly $40 per pound in early 2022, cobalt metal ground down to roughly $10 per pound by early 2025, a nine-year low, with the DRC's state minerals regulator complaining that the market price no longer covered the strategic value of the metal.

Then the DRC acted. In February 2025 Kinshasa suspended all cobalt exports for four months, extended the ban in June, and in October 2025 replaced it with a quota system capping exports at 96,600 tonnes per year for 2026 and 2027, well below capacity. Prices roughly doubled off the lows. Pricing runs through Fastmarkets' standard-grade cobalt metal assessment (USD per pound, in-warehouse), the basis for most contracts and for CME's cash-settled cobalt futures launched in December 2020. There is no physically delivered cobalt future; the metal's forms (metal, hydroxide, sulfate) are too heterogeneous.