Although Chinese firms have a stake in only 3 out of the top 10 cobalt producing nations, they will own over half of the cobalt production in the DRC and Indonesia, as well as 85% of the output from Papua New Guinea. This will give Chinese companies command of 46% of global cobalt mined supply by 2030, up 3% from 2023…Chinese firms are deeply embedded in the DRC’s mining sector, which will account for 74% of the world’s cobalt output in 2024, having secured several of the country’s key assets in the last decade. Western countries have ceded many of these interests to China, evidenced by the sale of two of the world’s largest cobalt assets, the Tenke Fungurume mine and Kisanfu project, by US-based Freeport-McMoran to CMOC in 2016 and 2020, respectively.

Four years ago Kenny Ives was a contender to be the next chief executive of commodity trader Glencore. Instead, as head of trading house IXM, he now has a different role: building the company into China’s answer to his former employer…Chinese-owned IXM, the world’s third-largest metals trader, is a key link in a global supply chain that provides China and other regions with materials used in electric vehicle batteries such as cobalt, copper and nickel… The Geneva-based company has recently expanded into trading lithium — another key EV battery ingredient — Ives said in an interview with the Financial Times. It is also setting up new offices in South Korea, India and the Democratic Republic of Congo as it expands its global footprint outside China. IXM’s ambitions are a test case in whether a trading house fully owned by a mining company — Shanghai- and Hong Kong-listed mining company CMOC bought IXM five years ago — can compete with the independent trading houses that dominate the industry…The firm has close ties to China. Chinese battery group CATL holds a 25 per cent stake in IXM’s owner CMOC and is a big customer of IXM, which supplies it with battery materials…Earlier this year, US under secretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment Jose Fernandez accused CMOC of using “predatory” tactics to flood the world with cobalt and keep prices down…Formerly part of Louis Dreyfus Company, IXM was bought by CMOC as part of a strategy to build a mining group covering the entire supply chain. 

General Motors is eyeing further North American investments in lithium and other critical minerals used to build electric vehicles after boosting its investment in a Nevada mine to nearly $1 billion earlier this week, an executive said on Thursday…While the Thacker Pass JV should supply GM with a "significant" amount of its lithium, the company is open to other critical minerals deals on the continent, Jeff Morrison, GM's senior vice president of global purchasing and supply chain, said in an interview on Thursday…A majority of GM's deals are for minerals supply, not necessarily JVs, and the automaker likely would continue that approach, he added…"We don't want to become a mining company," Morrison said. "Our main goal is to build out a North American based, Western-allied, reliant supply chain. To do that, we have to pick partners and assets and figure out what they need to do to industrialize and be successful."…GM also has agreements to buy cobalt from Glencore, an investment in nickel and cobalt miner Queensland Pacific Metals, and a lithium supply deal with Arcadium Lithium, among others.