Cobalt futures prices in China jumped more than 9% on Monday fuelled by China's strategic buying of cobalt and talks of extension of export ban from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the top supplier of the battery material…Prices on China's Wuxi Stainless Steel Exchange have surged by 55% since February.

The DRC accounted for 78% of global cobalt production in 2024, according to Fastmarkets’ research. With considerable price increases across the cobalt complex since the suspension, it is evident that the market is struggling over how to navigate the four months without fresh supply of these units…Fastmarkets’ daily price assessment for cobalt, standard grade, in-whs Rotterdam, was $14.25-16.00 per lb on Wednesday March 12. This was up from $13.00-15.50 per lb the day before and from $9.50-10.40 per lb on February 21, the day before the DRC export suspension….“It is a first-of-its-kind ban policy issued by the DRC,” a market participant said. “I never imagined the effort would be so large. I don’t think that, after the four months, the DRC government will let exports resume as usual. Maybe they’ll issue another policy, such as an export quota.”…“The talk of engineering cobalt out of batteries has been going on for years,” Fastmarkets’ analyst Robert Searle said. “But the fact of the matter is that NCM chemistries are still expected to play a significant role in Western EV markets, and the DRC remains the major source of mined cobalt extracted by Western, non-Chinese companies…“The DRC government doesn’t want to push consumers away from cobalt,” he added, “but there will need to be a ‘happy medium’ in terms of pricing that is acceptable to downstream refiners and to the DRC government in terms of royalty payments…“Should an export quota be put in place from June this year, we would expect prices to be supported at higher levels than if the oversupplied conditions were allowed to continue into the midterm, as was previously forecast,” Searle said…Indonesia accounted for 31,000 tonnes of global cobalt production in 2024, around 10% of the market share, according to Fastmarkets’ research.

Oil companies spent more than a century developing a vast industrial network to extract, refine and deliver their product to customers around the world. Sourcing the materials needed to build an alternative, less carbon-intensive economy presents a whole new set of challenges…China has been tackling these successfully for more than a decade, making it the undisputed leader in the “critical minerals” used in equipment such as electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and wind-turbine magnets…If other nations are going to have a chance of challenging its dominance in these clean technologies, they need to catch up fast. The race has taken on greater urgency now that China is curbing exports of several critical minerals in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs…Nations have long sought to secure supplies of materials they deem vital to their industrial and military capabilities. About 50 metallic elements and minerals have met those criteria in the U.S. and European Union, including lithium, graphite, cobalt, manganese and rare earths — elements with unique chemical behaviors that make them indispensable to the manufacture of some electrical, electronic, magnetic and optical products…Manufacturers try to avoid over-dependence on supplies from any single country because it leaves them exposed when that nation’s industrial output is disrupted by things like power shortages, epidemics or social unrest…With China, there’s also a strained relationship with the U.S. to consider, especially now that longstanding tensions are spiraling under Trump into a deeper trade war involving punitive tariffs and tightening export restrictions…As early as 1992, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping was highlighting his country’s potential to lead the world in critical minerals, saying “The Middle East has oil. China has rare earths.” As its economic growth accelerated, Chinese demand for industrial commodities began to far outstrip local reserves. It responded with heavy investments in mining assets overseas and came gradually to dominate the refining and processing of many industrial commodities, as well as a host of obscure byproducts. As China stepped in, Western companies withdrew, happy to outsource the production…China’s rivals have been trying to strike supply deals and investment partnerships with producing nations. However, China’s established position in many of those countries gives it an early advantage. For example, more than half of the cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo are owned or controlled by Chinese companies.

Xiaomi Corp. kicked off a share sale that may fetch as much as $5.3 billion, capitalizing on a surge in the Chinese company’s stock price to help raise funds to expand its electric-vehicle business…The offering, which comes weeks after EV giant BYD Co.’s $5.6 billion fundraising, builds on what’s shaping up to be a bumper year for share sales in Hong Kong…As to Xiaomi, the company is investing aggressively in its nascent EV business to drive growth. It recently increased its 2025 EV delivery target after posting the fastest revenue growth since 2021. As part of its efforts to ramp up production, the Beijing-based company is expanding the size of a planned second electric car factory in the Chinese capital, Bloomberg News reported earlier…Xiaomi shares have more than tripled from their low in August, making them the best performers on the Hang Seng and one of China’s most expensive tech stocks. The company has won investors over by duplicating its smartphone success in China’s crowded EV market.