The battery metal. Cobalt keeps lithium-ion batteries stable and long-lasting, and it gives jet engines the heat resistance they need.
About three out of every four tonnes of cobalt mined in the world come from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Most cobalt is not mined on its own. It comes out of the ground alongside copper or nickel, which is why the copper-cobalt ores of the Katanga region are so valuable.
Cobalt-based superalloys keep their strength at extreme temperatures, which makes them essential in jet engines and gas turbines. Rechargeable batteries are now the largest single use.
Copper-cobalt ore from the Katanga region, often mined together with copper.
Cobalt is leached and precipitated as cobalt hydroxide, the DRC’s main cobalt export.
Refineries turn hydroxide into cobalt metal for alloys, or into cobalt sulphate for battery makers.
Cobalt is priced against cobalt metal and hydroxide references published by price agencies such as Fastmarkets. Hydroxide usually sells at a percentage of the metal price, called the payable.
Medieval German miners kept finding an ore that looked like silver but gave off toxic fumes when smelted and yielded nothing of value. They blamed mischievous mountain spirits called “kobolds”. When chemists finally isolated the metal in the 1730s, the name stuck: cobalt.