Katanga Mining Ltd Ord KATFF

Why smartphones are no longer driving search for 'blue gold

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https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49265455

.....However, now that Glencore is closing down Mutanda, some 25,000 tonnes of cobalt will be taken out of global supply. That should start to stabilise prices.

Mr Heppel believes it will take until the end of the year before the effect is felt on the market....

.....As the price rose in 2017, CRU International estimated that the miners' output rose from 6,500 tonnes to more than 24,000. Then, as it fell, so did their output - down to 10,000 tonnes.....
 

Future boom?

But the time is coming, says CRU International, when they will be buying cobalt on a massive scale.

Mr Heppel says: "When we look at the EV market over the next 10 years, we see the big increase coming in 2020 to 2021. That will be the crunch time for global demand for cobalt as the big car companies, the BMWs, the VWs, Ford and Daimler are set to increase production."

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Image captionThe fundamanetal demand for cobalt is still strong: EVs lined up at a factory in Zhejiang Province,China.

He estimates demand for cobalt for car batteries will grow by between 24% and 35% every year from 2020 to 2023.

Even if Glencore brings Mutanda back on stream (the shutdown is for "care and maintenance"), and with the artisanal miners producing anything up to 40,000 tonnes a year, Mr Heppel believes it won't be sufficient to meet demand.

"There needs to be new supply of cobalt," he said. "There has been a lot of talk about the next-generation battery technology, but there is still nothing that competes with the nickel cobalt battery.

"There are some that in theory, in laboratory conditions, are cheaper and more efficient, but so far none have been proven to be commercially viable