12/30/2023 0 Comments San patrick cobalt price![]() I believe manufacturers of batteries for electronics and portable applications also will be relatively effective competitors because battery costs represent a small fraction of the final product cost. Industrial users will pay what they have to pay to get all the cobalt they need. The graphs won’t overlay perfectly due to time scale differences, but a side-by-side comparison says it all. The price chart on the right is from and reflects LME cobalt prices during that period. and summarizes industrial cobalt demand over the last five years. The graph on the left is based on data from Darton Commodities Ltd. I’m convinced industrial users will be the most effective competitors because cobalt represents an insignificant percentage of the ultimate cost of cobalt-dependent products and historical data shows that industrial demand does not decline when prices increase. Batteries for transportation and stationary applications used about 13,500 tonnes.Īs you consider the three classes of cobalt users, I think it’s worthwhile to reflect on their ability to compete for limited cobalt supplies when the inevitable shortages occur.Batteries for electronics and portable applications used about 47,000 tonnes, and.Industrial customers used about 50,500 tonnes,.Worldwide demand for refined cobalt was roughly 111,000 tonnes in 2018. Without sustained demand growth from the battery industry, supply growth of that magnitude would have crushed cobalt prices because industrial demand is extremely inelastic. ![]() ![]() In 2018, the Congo was the world's leading producer of cobalt with a 72% market share that will climb to 78% over the next three years. The cobalt byproduct contained in Congolese copper ores was 7,000 tonnes in 1999 and 98,000 tonnes in 2018. ![]() It’s also an indispensable raw material for the mixed metal oxide cathode powders used in all high-energy lithium-ion batteries.įor the last 20 years, lithium-ion battery manufacturers have been incidental beneficiaries of rapid growth in global cobalt supplies as several massive copper mines in the Congo came online. This article will summarize the supply and demand aspects of my presentation, describe the insurmountable cobalt supply deficits every non-Chinese battery and EV manufacturer will encounter in the front half of the next decade, and explain how the Cobalt Cliff could eradicate non-Chinese EV manufacturing before 2030.Ĭobalt is a classic “technology metal.” It’s an indispensable raw material for a wide variety of highly sophisticated processed materials including superalloys, hard metals, cemented carbides, catalysts, pigments, permanent magnets, and food additives. Last Thursday, I delivered a presentation on sub-sea mining and supply and demand issues in the cobalt market at the 19 th Annual Advanced Automotive Battery Conference in San Diego. I’ve been writing about a looming cobalt supply crunch that I refer to as the “Cobalt Cliff” since March 2016 when I learned that the overwhelming bulk of the world’s cobalt is a byproduct of copper mining in the Congo (72%) and nickel mining in other countries (26%). ![]()
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