Hunt for Next Electric-Car Commodity Quickens as Prices Soar
- Cobalt demand expected to increase 34% a year through 2026
- Top copper miner Chile looking to restart cobalt production
This article is for subscribers only.
Niche metal cobalt is leaving bigger names like copper and lithium in its dust, triggering a hunt for new deposits from Idaho to Chile.
As one of the key components in the new breed of rechargeable batteries and with supply dominated by the Democratic Republic of Congo, prices have surged at four times the pace of major metals in the past year. That’s caught the attention of governments, explorers and money managers, with annual demand set to increase 34 percent until 2026 as electric cars gain a bigger share of the global auto fleet, according to CRU Group.