LONDON (Reuters) -Glencore said on Wednesday a significant portion of its cobalt production was likely to remain unsold by the end of 2025 due to Democratic Republic of Congo’s suspension of cobalt exports.
DRC, the world’s top cobalt supplier, imposed a four-month suspension on exports in February after prices hit a nine-year low, and then extended it by three months in June.
The aim of the export ban was to curb the global cobalt oversupply, while the extension gave the government more time to work out how to distribute export quotas among mining companies.
“The extension of the export ban is expected to significantly tighten cobalt availability and accelerate inventory drawdowns, providing support to prices,” Glencore said in its first-half results statement.
The company told an analyst call that was it was being “quite conservative” about its assumptions, and there would be no material effect on its financial results even if it is unable to sell any cobalt from DRC for the rest of the year. If some volumes start to move, it would be an upside, it added.
Glencore, the world’s second-largest cobalt producing company, declared force majeure on some deliveries of cobalt from DRC earlier this year, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters in June.
The company said on Wednesday that it was stockpiling its DRC cobalt production in the country since the export ban was imposed. It did not say how much cobalt had been stockpiled.
In January-June, Glencore’s total cobalt output from its own sources rose 19% year on year to 18,900 metric tons. Its 2025 production outlook is 42,000-45,000 tons, up from 38,200 tons in 2024.
(Reporting by Polina Devitt. Editing by Pratima Desai and Mark Potter)
