Hunter Biden helped his Chinese buddies pull this off:
NYT: "How Hunter Biden’s Firm Helped Secure Cobalt for the Chinese"
From Bloomberg via Mining.com, January 4:
China’s CMOC Group boosted its cobalt output by more than 170% last year, with surging production at a new mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo helping the company leapfrog Glencore Plc as the world’s top producer of the key battery metal.
Hong Kong-listed CMOC produced 55,526 tons of cobalt in 2023, it said in a filing on Thursday. In October, Glencore forecast output of as much as 42,000 tons. While investors and traders had been expecting a large increase at CMOC’s massive Kisanfu mine — which came online in the second quarter — the full-year result exceeded the company’s own production guidance by more than 20%.
Soaring output at the $1.8 billion Kisanfu mine helped trigger a sharp slump in cobalt prices last year, alongside rising production in Indonesia and a rebound in exports from CMOC’s other operation in Congo, Tenke-Fungurume. The market was already in one of its biggest ever surpluses as 2023 began, and the additional output helped drive a 30% slump in prices over the year....
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We have something of a soft spot in our hearts for Tenke-Fungurume in particular and cobalt more generally, especially the first run-up:
From Trading Economics (also on blogroll at right):
source: tradingeconomics.com
