China's cobalt sulfate market softened on Friday July 30 with competitive offers from scrap-fed materials; some traders began to give aggressive offers to generate sales, sources told Fastmarkets.
Lower offers for cobalt sulfate produced from scrap emerged and brought downward pressure on the market, which halted buying for sulfate produced from cobalt hydroxide (regular-fed material) while buyers kept watchful attitudes. Aggressive offers for materials produced from scrap disappeared in June and July due to increasing production costs amid a rising cobalt price and bullish market sentiment. Cobalt scrap in China is often priced at a certain percentage of the domestic cobalt metal price. A falling domestic cobalt price has lowered production costs for scrap-fed material so competitive offers have reappeared on the spot market,...