This year it is the turn of cobalthttps://uk.reuters.com/article/cobalt-market-ahome-idUKL8N1HI3KJ
This year it is the turn of cobalt.
The price of cobalt traded on the London Metal Exchange (LME) has exploded from $33,000 per tonne to $55,000 since the start of January.
This time last year, the price was bombed out at multi-year lows below $25,000 per tonne.
As with lithium, cobalt's story is all about batteries and the green technology revolution.
The lithium-cobalt battery is already standard in many electronic applications and both metals are expected to see usage accelerate thanks to the rapidly evolving electric vehicle and grid storage sectors.
And as with lithium, stellar demand projections have led to increased scrutiny of the supply chain.
Which is where cobalt may turn out to be even more of a rollercoaster market than lithium.
Graphic on the LME cobalt price: tmsnrt.rs/2nZRORf
THE SCRAMBLE FOR COBALT
The scale and speed of the cobalt price surge over the last few months reflects a scramble for units.
The cobalt market has been transitioning over the last year or so from a state of oversupply to one of shortfall, with most analysts forecasting a supply deficit in 2017.
That expectation coupled with all the excitement surrounding the lithium story seems to have led to several high-profile funds such as Switzerland's Pala Investments and China's Shanghai Chaos Investment buying up physical stocks of cobalt.
Which in turn seems to have triggered panic buying by cobalt users along the manufacturing chain.
The cumulative effect has been a near straight-line price rally since the fourth quarter of last year.
As ever with such rapid and violent price action, though, the drivers have in all probability abated just as the rest of the world sits up and pays attention.
That was how lithium played out last year and that's how analysts think cobalt will play out this year.
A FRAGILE SUPPLY CHAIN But cobalt's supply chain is much more fragile than that of lithium, with its big, established players operating brine lakes in the relatively stable environment of the "Lithium Triangle" straddling Chile and Argentina.
Cobalt, by contrast, is massively dependent on one highly unstable African country, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that last year the DRC accounted for 66,000 tonnes of global mined cobalt production of 123,000 tonnes.
In terms of reserves the country is estimated to have 3.4 million tonnes of cobalt, around half of the world's identified resources, again according to the USGS....