Trade and tariff analytics
2026-04-26
10 minute read
12 sources
Cobalt 2026: the DRC chokepoint, the Indonesian flood, and a price floor that has not held
Seventy percent of mined cobalt comes out of one country, three quarters of refining sits in another, and the price has fallen by two thirds since 2022. The chokepoint did not disappear. It moved.
Cobalt entered 2026 as the most concentrated battery metal in the world and the worst priced. The Democratic Republic of the Congo produced roughly 70 percent of mined supply in 2024, China refined about three quarters of the global total, and prices fell from above 80,000 US dollars per tonne in 2022 to a 24,000 to 30,000 corridor across...