DRC Set to Maintain Dominance in the Cobalt Market Until 2030
In 2022 alone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo produced 115,371 tonnes of cobalt, more than two-thirds of global production.
This importance of the DRC in the world supply of the green metal will have to continue until 2030, according to the projections of the Cobalt Institute, in its report of the year 2022 relating to the state of the world market.
According to expert projections, the DRC should represent 57% of the world’s cobalt supply from its mines in 2030, compared to 73% in 2022. This, despite the rise of Indonesia in the production of cobalt .
In a document written by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, Indonesia should increase its production by 10 while that of the DRC should only increase by two thirds.
As a result, the DRC’s share of global cobalt supply growth is projected to be 44% over the period 2022-2030, compared to 37% for Indonesia.
Note that in 2022, global cobalt production increased by 21% year-on-year to reach 198,000 tonnes. In 2023, it is expected that the threshold of 200,000 tonnes of cobalt will be exceeded. A conservative estimate puts 318,000 tonnes of cobalt in 2030.
