Bernstein: Global cobalt supply will be short of long

       British Bernstein's research shows that the next 10 years, due to increased demand, the global supply of cobalt will be in short supply, the international cobalt price may once again stood 100,000 US dollars / ton.

At present, the London Metal Exchange cobalt price of 60,750 US dollars / ton, last week rose to 61250 US dollars / ton. Before the 2008 financial crisis, the international cobalt price has hit a maximum price of 107,000 US dollars / ton.

Bernstein predicts that as the world turns to a truly green economy, by 2034, global cobalt demand will exceed 1 million tons, mainly because of the electric vehicle battery drive. In 2016, the world's cobalt supply of coal is only 120,000 tons.

The above forecast is based on a compound annual growth rate of 17% expected by 2030 and is considered where the market is likely to be replaced by cobalt. In order to increase the user's need for electric vehicle history, and to avoid over-reliance on cobalt considerations, cobalt may be more replaced by nickel.

Bernstein predicts that by 2025, electric car sales will account for 11.2 percent of all cars, 45.7 percent in 2030 and 84 percent in 2040. Therefore, by 2030, electric vehicles with cobalt consumption will reach 426,000 tons, by the end of the 2013, this figure will reach 700,000 tons.

However, from the supply side, even in accordance with the most optimistic situation, that is, based on the 2030 annual compound annual growth rate of 10%, the global cobalt supply can not meet the market demand.

And to achieve 10% growth in the next three years, all existing projects must be developed and to achieve design capacity. At this rate, global cobalt reserves will be depleted in the next 20 years.

In addition, all other projects in the next 15 years must also be developed and progressed smoothly. But this is almost impossible, because the project construction is facing a series of issues such as licensing, environmental assessment, feasibility analysis and financing.

To protect the supply of cobalt, another way is to achieve 80% of new batteries in 2020 to recover effectively, of which 90% of the cobalt can be recycled, that is, the use of renewable cobalt to protect the market demand.

Then, both the existing project and the development of new projects are faced with the fact that more than half of the world (54% in 2016) is supplied from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Historically, due to political instability and social conflict, the market supply is facing the risk of interruption, and the tax and the change of the right system are also important factors.

Bernstein's statistics found that 48% of the potential projects were in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

From the associated minerals, to achieve the continued supply of cobalt need to increase the production of copper, but on the other hand, due to nickel prices in the doldrums, which affects its by-product cobalt production.

Therefore, Bernstein estimates that even in accordance with 27.4% of the extreme growth rate of growth, cobalt can not meet the 30% of the growth rate of electric vehicles. In the low cobalt content and other distributed battery energy storage system does not use cobalt, according to 2030 27% of the cobalt production growth and by 2035 37% growth rate, to protect the 2030 electric car ownership 3100 Million, 2035 42 million of the demand for cobalt. If the world war, it will lead to weapons-grade steel and super alloy with cobalt demand growth.

From the reserves, the global lack of cobalt reserves. Therefore, Bernstein suggested that, in order to support the growing demand for electric vehicles, on the one hand the need to encourage cobalt exploration and development, on the other hand to consider the development of new battery technology.