Congo halts cobalt exports for four months
“This measure is intended to regulate supply on the international market, which is faced with a production glut,” explained Patrick Luabeya, President of the Authority for the Regulation and Control of Markets for Strategic Mineral Substances (ARECOMS). The decree was signed by Luabeya and Mining Minister Kizito Pakabomba. The export ban on cobalt has been in force since 22 February and can either be adjusted or lifted after three months.
Cobalt production in the Democratic Republic of Congo has risen sharply in recent years as the Chinese CMOC Group has ramped up production at two large mines in the country. CMOC, the world’s largest cobalt producer with a market share of 40 per cent, more than doubled its production of the metal last year from around 56,000 tonnes to around 114,000 tonnes.
As a result, supply has recently outstripped demand and pushed prices down. According to data from Fastmarkets, benchmark metal prices have recently fallen to below ten dollars per pound – a level that has not been reached for 21 years, apart from a brief slump at the end of 2015. Cobalt hydroxide, the most important form of the metal produced in Congo, has fallen below six dollars per pound.
In addition to CMOC, the Swiss commodities group Glencore and the Eurasian Resources Group, which is supported by Kazakhstan, also mine cobalt in the Congo. In total, the Congo supplies around three-quarters of the world’s demand for cobalt for electric car batteries. Cobalt is extracted in Congo as a by-product of copper mining. While the ban on cobalt supplies applies to all producers “unilaterally and without exception,” there are no production restrictions and there should be no impact on copper exports.
Other international manufacturers have also attempted to source cobalt from Congo over the past years, for example, CATL from China was looking to purchase a stake in the Jinchuan Group International Resources mining company, which operates in Congo in 2021. Most recently, Northvolt joined a cobalt mining initiative in 2024, which is committed to the promotion of fairly mined cobalt in small-scale mining in the Congo. In 2022, the state of Congo itself became more involved, launching a battery supply chain together with Zambia.
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