Fastmarkets' pricing and research team answers some of the key questions raised during our web seminar, discussing recent price moves in the cobalt market and how industry developments might affect the market - and prices.
If you missed it, follow this link to listen to the free recording.By what time do you estimate current excess cobalt supply to be absorbed? We expect this will happen by 2023-2024; we forecast a 2,000-tonne surplus in 2019 and see it rising to 16,000 tonnes in 2020. Given low prices, are cobalt sulfate producers cutting output and switching to other production? Battery producers in China are slowing operations and cutting orders due to changes to the country's EV subsidy policy; cobalt sulfate prices are down 65% from a year ago (ex-works China). Waning appetite is filtering across the whole supply chain. A growing number of cobalt sulfate producers have cut sulfate output and switched to production of other products, including nickel sulfate, cobalt chloride and cobalt metal. Analysts refer to lots of sulfate stock in China but Chinese hydroxide imports are down year on year. Are stocks actually high...