Cobalt Co
What it is for
Cobalt stabilises the cathode in most lithium-ion batteries, letting them run hotter and last longer. It is also the mineral the industry is most actively trying to design out: lithium-iron-phosphate chemistries use none at all, and their rising share is the clearest case anywhere of demand for a critical mineral being engineered downward on purpose.
What it costs
Where it sits in the chain
Most cobalt is not mined for its own sake. It comes out of the ground as a by-product of copper in the Congo and of nickel elsewhere, which means supply responds to the copper and nickel price rather than to the cobalt price — a cobalt shortage cannot easily call forth more cobalt if copper is cheap. Refining is again concentrated in China. The Congolese share also comes with a well-documented artisanal mining sector that no production statistic distinguishes from industrial output.
Who has it
| Country | Production | Reserves | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Congo, Dem. Rep. | 220,000 | 6,000,000 | 2024 |
| Indonesia | 28,000 | 640,000 | 2024 |
| Russian Federation | 8,700 | 250,000 | 2024 |
| Canada | 4,500 | 220,000 | 2024 |
| Philippines | 3,800 | 260,000 | 2024 |
| Australia | 3,600 | 1,700,000 | 2024 |
| Cuba | 3,500 | 500,000 | 2024 |
| Papua New Guinea | 2,800 | 62,000 | 2024 |
| Turkiye | 2,700 | 91,000 | 2024 |
| Madagascar | 2,600 | 100,000 | 2024 |
Production and reserves in tonnes of contained cobalt; price in US dollars per tonne.
How concentrated it is
The Democratic Republic of the Congo dominates mine production more heavily than any other country dominates any other major mineral here. That single fact is why cobalt appears on every critical-minerals list, and it connects directly to this platform's note on where African resources go: the Congo's export concentration is not a coincidence but the same structure seen from the trade side.
What this cannot show
By-product minerals break the usual reading of a reserve figure, because the deposit is developed on the economics of the main metal. Artisanal production is estimated rather than measured and is a large share of Congolese output, so the tonnages carry more uncertainty than their precision suggests.
Other resources
Copper · Lithium · Nickel · Potash · Phosphate · Iron ore · Aluminium · Zinc · Tin