Co · Atomic Number 27
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Cobalt metal 99.8% min, LME cash. Verified and updated weekly.
Cobalt is element 27 — a hard, lustrous, silver-grey metal with magnetic properties and exceptional resistance to heat and wear. It has been used in pigments and alloys for centuries — cobalt blue, the vivid colour in medieval stained glass and Chinese porcelain, comes from cobalt compounds. Today its industrial importance comes from two distinct properties: its ability to stabilise lithium-ion battery cathodes, and its performance in superalloys designed to withstand extreme temperatures.
The battery application currently dominates demand. Cobalt is used in the cathode materials of lithium-ion batteries — specifically in NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) and NCA (nickel-cobalt-aluminium) chemistries that power electric vehicles and consumer electronics. In these chemistries, cobalt provides structural stability to the cathode, preventing the thermal runaway that causes batteries to overheat and potentially ignite. Higher cobalt content generally means a more stable, safer battery — which is why early EV batteries used significant quantities of cobalt per kilowatt-hour of capacity.
The superalloy application is strategically critical. Cobalt-based superalloys (high-performance metal compounds designed to maintain strength and resist oxidation at extreme temperatures) are used in the hot sections of jet engines — the turbine blades and vanes that operate in the combustion zone where temperatures exceed 1,000 degrees Celsius. There is no cost-effective substitute for cobalt in this application. Every commercial aircraft engine and every military jet engine depends on cobalt superalloys.
The demand story for cobalt has become more complex than it appeared five years ago. Battery manufacturers and automakers have been actively reducing cobalt intensity in EV batteries — moving from NMC-622 (60% nickel, 20% manganese, 20% cobalt) toward NMC-811 (80% nickel, 10% manganese, 10% cobalt) and further toward LFP (lithium iron phosphate — zero cobalt). The direction of travel in EV batteries is toward less cobalt per vehicle, not more.
Plain English
Cobalt stabilises EV batteries and is irreplaceable in jet engine superalloys. The battery industry is actively reducing how much cobalt it uses per vehicle. The defense and aerospace industry cannot reduce it at all. Those two demand stories are moving in opposite directions — and the supply is almost entirely concentrated in one of the world's most unstable countries.
The Democratic Republic of Congo accounts for approximately 70–75% of global cobalt mine production — the most extreme geographic concentration of any critical mineral on ScarceEarth. The DRC's cobalt reserves are a geological accident of enormous strategic consequence: the Central African Copperbelt, which spans the DRC and Zambia, contains the world's largest and highest-grade cobalt deposits, formed alongside copper in the same ore bodies over hundreds of millions of years.
The DRC's governance context is the defining supply risk. Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) — informal mining conducted by individuals and small groups without mechanisation — accounts for approximately 15–20% of DRC cobalt production and has been extensively documented for child labour, dangerous working conditions, and supply chain opacity. Industrial mining by major companies — Glencore's Katanga operation, Ivanhoe Mines' Kamoa-Kakula — operates under different standards but in the same governance environment, subject to the same regulatory uncertainty, infrastructure constraints, and political risk.
China has secured a dominant position in the cobalt supply chain through state-backed investment in DRC mining operations and through control of cobalt refining. Chinese companies own or have significant stakes in the majority of the largest DRC cobalt mines. Chinese refiners process approximately 70–80% of global cobalt into the battery-grade cobalt sulfate and cobalt hydroxide that cathode manufacturers use. The ore comes from the DRC; the value is captured in China.
Outside the DRC, meaningful cobalt production occurs in Russia, Australia, the Philippines, Cuba, and Canada — all as byproducts of nickel or copper mining. None approaches DRC scale.
Plain English
70–75% of the world's cobalt comes from the DRC. China processes most of it. The DRC has child labour in artisanal mines, governance instability, and infrastructure challenges. Every EV battery and every jet engine has a DRC supply chain problem embedded in it.
The cobalt market in 2026 is navigating a genuine structural tension: the long-term demand outlook from EVs and energy storage is constructive, but the near-term demand picture has been weighed down by the chemistry shift away from high-cobalt battery formulations and by the oversupply that accumulated when mine investment tracked an optimistic EV demand trajectory that has so far only partially materialised.
The chemistry shift is real and measurable. The average cobalt content per kilowatt-hour of EV battery capacity has fallen significantly over the past five years as manufacturers moved from high-cobalt NMC formulations toward lower-cobalt and zero-cobalt alternatives. LFP batteries — now the dominant chemistry in Chinese EVs and growing globally — contain no cobalt at all. The EV revolution that was supposed to be cobalt's defining demand story has instead become a story of cobalt substitution.
The defense and aerospace demand story runs counter to the EV substitution trend. Superalloy demand for jet engines is growing as commercial aviation recovers from COVID-era suppression and as defense spending increases globally. There is no cobalt substitution pathway for high-temperature superalloys — the thermal and mechanical performance requirements are absolute. This creates a bifurcated demand picture: battery cobalt being substituted away, superalloy cobalt growing without substitution risk.
The supply side remains DRC-dependent and China-processed. Western efforts to develop alternative cobalt supply chains — including domestic US cobalt projects and Australian operations — remain small relative to DRC output. The US has identified cobalt as a critical mineral and the DLA maintains strategic stockpiles, but processing independence from Chinese cobalt refining remains a multi-year project.
Plain English
EV batteries are using less cobalt per vehicle. Jet engines cannot use less cobalt. The price is caught between these two forces. The DRC still supplies most of it. China still processes most of it. The long-term demand story depends on whether EV battery demand growth outpaces cobalt intensity reduction — and that question is genuinely unresolved.
The defining editorial tension in cobalt is not a supply shock or an export ban. It is a demand-side chemistry transition that is happening faster than most cobalt market models predicted, and slower than cobalt bears claimed.
Five years ago, analysts projecting EV adoption growth projected cobalt demand growing in direct proportion to EV volumes. Battery manufacturers had different plans. Tesla moved aggressively toward cobalt-free LFP chemistry for its standard-range vehicles. CATL, BYD, and other Chinese manufacturers shifted their mass-market EV production predominantly to LFP. The NMC chemistry that uses cobalt retained its position in premium, long-range applications — but premium, long-range applications are a subset of the EV market, not the whole market.
The result: EV production has grown significantly, but cobalt demand from EVs has not grown proportionally. The cobalt market that was supposed to be structurally short by 2025 is instead in surplus, with LME cobalt prices that at various points in 2024–2025 fell below the cost of production for some DRC operations.
The bear case for cobalt is that this trend continues — LFP continues to take market share in mass-market EVs globally, NMC holds only in premium segments, and cobalt demand per EV continues declining faster than EV volumes grow. The bull case is that premium EV adoption — the segment that retains NMC chemistry for energy density — grows large enough to offset mass-market LFP substitution, and that energy storage applications (grid-scale batteries) add cobalt demand that EV substitution removed.
Plain English
Cobalt was supposed to be structurally short by 2025. Instead it is in surplus because EV batteries are using less of it. The question is whether the demand recovery from premium EVs and grid storage outpaces the substitution from mass-market LFP. That question is open. The supply concentration in the DRC and Chinese processing is not — that part of the story hasn't changed.
Cobalt's price history is marked by extreme volatility — two major cycles in under a decade, both driven by mismatches between supply investment and demand reality.
The first cycle peaked in April 2018 at approximately $95,000 per tonne — driven by speculative positioning on EV demand forecasts that proved premature. Prices collapsed through 2019 and 2020 as DRC supply expanded and EV adoption ran below the most optimistic projections. By late 2020, cobalt had fallen below $30,000 per tonne.
The second cycle: recovery through 2021 and into 2022 as EV demand accelerated and supply chain disruptions added tightness. LME cobalt reached approximately $82,000 per tonne in May 2022 before reversing. The reversal was driven by DRC supply growth, Chinese strategic stock releases, and the chemistry shift toward lower-cobalt formulations becoming visible in demand data. Through 2023 and 2024, prices fell significantly — at times below $30,000 per tonne again — as the surplus became apparent.
May 2026: LME cobalt sits at approximately $56,290 per tonne — recovered from the 2024 lows but well below the 2022 peak. The recovery has been supported by DLA stockpiling, some recovery in battery demand, and superalloy demand growth from aerospace. The market is in a cautious stabilisation phase — above the extreme lows but without the momentum that would suggest a new structural bull cycle is beginning.
Plain English
Two boom-bust cycles in under a decade. Peaked near $95,000/t in 2018 on EV hype. Collapsed. Recovered to $82,000/t in 2022. Collapsed again as chemistry shift became visible in demand data. Now at $56,290/t — recovered from the lows, well below the peaks. The chemistry shift is the reason cobalt hasn't followed the broader critical minerals rally. It may still.
Where this mineral is produced and how concentrated that production is. Concentration drives geopolitical risk — the fewer countries that produce a mineral, the more leverage any one of them has over global supply.
DRC controls 70% — geopolitical and ESG risk concentrated in a single country.
Companies with direct operational exposure to the cobalt supply chain.
Glencore
LSE: GLEN / OTC: GLNCY
The world's largest cobalt producer, operating the Katanga copper-cobalt mine in the DRC and controlling approximately 20–25% of global cobalt supply through its mining and trading operations. Relevant because Glencore's production and pricing decisions are the single most important supply-side input to the global cobalt market — its output, stockpiling decisions, and trading positions directly set the tone for LME cobalt pricing.
Electra Battery Materials
NASDAQ: ELBM
A Canadian company developing North America's only cobalt refinery in Ontario — designed to process DRC cobalt hydroxide into battery-grade cobalt sulfate for North American battery and EV manufacturers seeking non-Chinese cobalt processing. Relevant because Electra represents the Western cobalt processing independence thesis — the missing refining layer between DRC mine output and battery-grade material that currently runs almost entirely through Chinese facilities.
Jervois Global
ASX: JRV
An Australian cobalt company with mining and refining operations across multiple jurisdictions including the Idaho Cobalt Operations in the United States — one of the few primary cobalt mines in a Western jurisdiction — pursuing the development of a domestic US cobalt supply chain outside the DRC-China axis. Relevant because Idaho Cobalt represents the US domestic cobalt production thesis, though at current cobalt prices the project's economics remain challenging.
Connected companies are included for informational context only. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Conduct your own due diligence.
Cobalt is the critical mineral with the most genuinely uncertain demand outlook on ScarceEarth. The supply story is clear and unchanged: DRC dominance, Chinese processing control, governance risk, artisanal mining concerns. The demand story is contested in a way that makes confident forecasting difficult.
The bear case is that LFP substitution continues, cobalt intensity per EV vehicle continues declining, and the demand recovery from premium EVs and grid storage is insufficient to offset the structural reduction in mass-market EV cobalt use. In this scenario, cobalt remains oversupplied and prices stay depressed relative to the 2018 and 2022 peaks.
The bull case is that solid-state batteries — next-generation battery technology currently in development that could enable higher energy density than current lithium-ion — may favour higher cobalt content. Premium EV adoption in Western markets grows significantly. Grid-scale energy storage adds cobalt demand that was not in earlier models. DRC supply faces disruption. Any combination of these could tighten the market.
What is not uncertain: the superalloy application. Every jet engine, military and commercial, requires cobalt. That demand grows with aviation and defense spending and cannot be substituted away. It is a structural floor under cobalt demand that the battery chemistry debate obscures.
Plain English
The supply is concentrated and risky. The demand is genuinely uncertain — batteries are using less cobalt, jet engines cannot. The price reflects that uncertainty: recovered from the lows, well below the peaks, waiting for the battery chemistry story to resolve. The DRC and Chinese processing haven't changed. Everything else is in motion.
Pricing data: LME cobalt cash price (May 2026). Supply data: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026; Glencore production reports; DRC mining ministry data. Demand data: Benchmark Mineral Intelligence cobalt demand forecasts; IEA Critical Minerals Outlook; Cobalt Institute market report 2025. Price history: LME official prices (2018–2026). As of May 2026.