In an update available on Neon Insights, Andries Gerbens, Darton Commodities’ Director of Global Marketing and author of its Cobalt Market Review, examines the potential short- and longer-term impact on cobalt prices of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) extending its export ban by three months.
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As the world’s dominant producer, the DRC originally imposed the ban in February to address a record surplus of unrefined cobalt in the market that was driving prices down. Cobalt feedstock is an important raw material in the production of electric vehicle batteries and a wide range of other sectors.
Gerbens notes in Darton’s update that the ban extension surprised most industry players, who were expecting a four-week extension, followed by export quotas. He anticipates that prolonging the ban until the end of September could equate to as much as 140,000 metric tonnes of cobalt in feedstock produced in DRC not being exported.
Chinese cobalt refiners will be especially hard-hit by the feedstock shortage, Gerbens explains, given that 84 per cent of China’s imports in 2024 originated from the DRC. Even if the export ban is completely lifted in September, it is unlikely that any unrefined DRC cobalt will reach China – the world’s largest refining market – before the end of 2025. “This would leave China starved of refinery feedstock for much of the balance of 2025, creating significant room for market disruptions and price volatility,” he writes.
Darton’s analysis indicates that refiners may increasingly resort to using cobalt metal as refinery feed to compensate for the shortage. Gerbens expects that this temporary tactic could tighten the metal market and push its price significantly higher, with further upside potential coming from “governmental agencies looking to stockpile cobalt metal in an environment of growing geopolitical tensions”. In this context, the impact of such stockpiling on Chinese and US refiners will be a major market focus.
However, the longer-term outlook could have the opposite effect intended by the DRC government, creating a negative impact on global cobalt prices. Industry data tracked by Darton shows that the ban is severely disrupting supply chains, but has yet to correct fully the global market imbalance that first caused the DRC to intervene. Gerbens suggests that this ban extension might prompt downstream consumers to steer away from DRC-sourced cobalt as a raw material in favour of alternatives, especially if suppliers with available stocks of unrefined cobalt outside the DRC increase prices for customers.
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