Cobalt Producing Countries: Who Mines the World’s Most Critical Battery Metal and What Drives the Price

Cobalt producing countries defined Cobalt is a hard, lustrous metal produced primarily as a byproduct of copper and nickel mining. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) accounts for approximately 84% of global cobalt mine production, making it the most concentrated single-country supply of any major industrial metal. The next largest producer is Indonesia at around 16% of global supply. Cobalt is the key cathode material in lithium-ion NMC and NCA batteries used in electric vehicles and consumer electronics, though the rise of cobalt-free LFP battery chemistry is reshaping long-term demand expectations.

Table of Contents

1. What Is Cobalt and Why Is It Strategically Critical?
2. Top Cobalt Producing Countries: 2025 Rankings
3. The DRC: 84% of Global Supply and the Cobalt Curse
4. Indonesia’s Rise: The HPAL Revolution and Chinese Investment
5. Russia, Madagascar, Australia, Canada and the Rest
6. Global Cobalt Reserves: Where Is the Metal in the Ground?
7. Cobalt as a Byproduct Metal: Why Supply Cannot Be Easily Controlled
8. LME Cobalt: The Pricing Benchmark
9. The LFP Substitution Threat: What Cobalt-Free Batteries Mean
10. Frequently Asked Questions
11. Key Takeaways

What Is Cobalt and Why Is It Strategically Critical?

Cobalt is atomic number 27 — a bluish-grey metal that melts at 1,495°C. For most of industrial history it was a niche material, used in high-temperature alloys for jet engines and cutting tools, and as a pigment for blue glass and ceramics (cobalt blue has been in use since antiquity).

The rechargeable battery revolution changed everything.

Cobalt is a key component of the cathode in lithium-ion batteries. In the NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) and NCA (nickel cobalt aluminium) cathode chemistries that power most electric vehicles and consumer electronics, cobalt stabilises the cathode structure, improves energy density, and reduces the risk of thermal runaway — which in plain English means it helps stop batteries from catching fire.

Without cobalt in the NMC cathode, you get a less stable, lower-performing battery. Battery manufacturers have spent years trying to reduce cobalt content in their formulations — the progression from NMC 111 (equal parts nickel, manganese, cobalt) to NMC 811 (80% nickel, 10% manganese, 10% cobalt) reflects this drive to reduce exposure to cobalt’s cost and supply risk.

The strategic criticality is straightforward: cobalt is essential for the dominant EV battery chemistry, it is overwhelmingly produced in one of the world’s most politically unstable countries, and Chinese companies control a dominant share of both mining and processing. The USA, EU, Japan, and South Korea have all designated cobalt as a critical mineral.

Top Cobalt Producing Countries: 2025 Rankings

Rank	Country	2024 Estimated Production (MT)	Global Share (%)
1	Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)	~230,000	~84%
2	Indonesia	~44,000	~16%
3	Russia	~8,900	~3%
4	Australia	~5,600	~2%
5	Philippines	~4,500	~1.6%
6	Canada	~3,900	~1.4%
7	Madagascar	~3,700	~1.4%
8	Papua New Guinea	~3,200	~1.2%

Note: Percentages sum above 100% due to rounding and different data sources. Total global cobalt mine production in 2024 was approximately 270,000–290,000 MT.

The table makes clear how abnormal the DRC’s dominance is. The next three largest producers combined — Indonesia, Russia, and Australia — account for roughly 20% of global supply. For context, Saudi Arabia, the world’s dominant oil producer, accounts for roughly 12% of global oil supply. The DRC’s cobalt share is nearly seven times more concentrated.

Indonesia’s appearance in the number-two position is recent. In 2021, Indonesia produced roughly 2,700 MT of cobalt. By 2024 that had grown to approximately 44,000 MT — a more than 1,500% increase in three years, driven entirely by the HPAL processing technology deployed at Indonesian nickel projects.

The DRC: 84% of Global Supply and the ‘Cobalt Curse’

The Democratic Republic of the Congo holds the world’s largest cobalt reserves — an estimated 4 million metric tonnes, roughly 46% of total global reserves. The Katanga copper belt in the DRC’s south-eastern Lualaba Province is one of the most mineralogically rich regions on earth.

The DRC’s cobalt comes from two distinct mining contexts:

Industrial mining: Large-scale, mechanised operations owned by multinational mining companies. The largest producers include Glencore (whose Katanga and Kamoto Copper Company operations are among the world’s largest single cobalt-producing assets), China Molybdenum (CMOC), Eurasian Resources Group, and Ivanhoe Mines. These industrial mines produce cobalt as a byproduct of large-scale copper mining.

Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM): An estimated 30,000–40,000 artisanal miners — and, in documented cases, children — mine cobalt by hand in informal pits. Artisanal mining accounts for roughly 15–25% of DRC cobalt production, with significant uncertainty in the estimates. The human rights concerns around ASM cobalt — child labour, unsafe conditions, environmental damage — have driven major battery manufacturers and EV companies to implement supply chain traceability programs (Apple, Tesla, and others have published cobalt sourcing policies specifically in response).

The cobalt curse is an informal term for the paradox of the DRC’s extraordinary mineral wealth coexisting with extreme poverty, persistent armed conflict, and governance failures. Cobalt has generated enormous revenue for mining companies and Chinese trading houses. It has not generated equivalent development for the Congolese population. The DRC ranks in the bottom 5% of the UN Human Development Index despite being among the most mineral-rich countries on earth.

Chinese interests are dominant throughout DRC cobalt. Estimates suggest Chinese companies control around 50%+ of DRC cobalt production through direct mine ownership and offtake agreements. Chinese companies own or have significant stakes in mines operated by CMOC, Huayou Cobalt, and multiple smaller operations.

Indonesia’s Rise: The HPAL Revolution and Chinese Investment

Indonesia’s emergence as a major cobalt producer is one of the most significant commodity supply chain shifts of the 2020s.

Indonesia has vast reserves of nickel laterite ore — a type of nickel-bearing ore found in tropical regions. Laterite ore was historically difficult to process economically. Then HPAL changed the equation.

HPAL (High-Pressure Acid Leaching) is a chemical processing technique that dissolves nickel and cobalt from laterite ore using sulphuric acid at high temperature and pressure. HPAL had existed for decades but was considered expensive and technically challenging. The combination of high nickel and cobalt prices, abundant Indonesian laterite deposits, and aggressive Chinese industrial investment made HPAL economically viable at scale.

Between 2021 and 2024, Chinese companies (primarily Huayou Cobalt, GEM, and Lygend Resources, often in joint ventures with Indonesian partners) built multiple HPAL plants in Indonesia. The Indonesian government required that HPAL plants produce battery-grade nickel sulphate and cobalt hydroxide — not just raw ore — as a condition of operating, ensuring that processing value was captured domestically.

The result: Indonesia’s cobalt output grew from around 2,700 MT in 2021 to approximately 44,000 MT in 2024 — a more than 1,500% increase. Indonesia has gone from an afterthought in cobalt supply to a significant structural alternative to DRC supply.

Chinese interests control the vast majority of Indonesian HPAL cobalt production — estimates suggest over 85% of Indonesian cobalt output flows through Chinese-invested operations.

Russia, Madagascar, Australia, Canada and the Rest

Russia produces approximately 8,900 MT of cobalt per year, primarily from the Norilsk Nickel complex in Siberia. Norilsk Nickel is one of the world’s largest nickel and palladium producers; cobalt is a byproduct. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Western sanctions and self-sanctioning by commodity traders created uncertainty around Russian cobalt supply. Russian cobalt continued to flow primarily to Asian buyers.

Madagascar has a single dominant source: Ambatovy, a nickel-cobalt HPAL operation in central Madagascar owned by a consortium including Sumitomo Corporation. Ambatovy’s output is roughly 3,700 MT/year. Madagascar’s cobalt is geographically significant — it is one of very few notable African cobalt sources outside the DRC.

Australia produces around 5,600 MT of cobalt annually, primarily from nickel operations in Western Australia (including the Murrin Murrin and Ravensthorpe HPAL plants). Australia holds the world’s second-largest cobalt reserves at approximately 1.7 million metric tonnes — about 20% of global reserves.

Canada produces roughly 3,900 MT/year from operations in Ontario (Sudbury nickel belt) and elsewhere. Canadian cobalt benefits from stable jurisdiction and established refining infrastructure.

Philippines produces cobalt primarily as a byproduct of nickel laterite mining, with output around 4,500 MT/year.

The combined output of all producers outside the DRC and Indonesia is roughly 26,000–30,000 MT/year — less than 15% of global supply.

Global Cobalt Reserves: Where Is the Metal in the Ground?

Cobalt reserves (economically mineable quantities at current prices and technology) are distributed very differently from current production:

Country	Estimated Reserves (MT)	Share of Global Reserves
DRC	~4,000,000	~46%
Australia	~1,700,000	~20%
Indonesia	~600,000	~7%
Russia	~250,000	~3%
Cuba	~500,000	~6%
Philippines	~260,000	~3%
Others	~1,390,000	~16%

Australia’s reserve position is far larger than its current production suggests. Australia produces about 2% of global cobalt but holds 20% of reserves. The gap reflects a combination of ore grade, processing costs, and the economics of mining in a high-cost jurisdiction. Australian cobalt could expand significantly if prices justify investment.

Cuba holds large cobalt reserves (mostly at the Moa nickel-cobalt operation in eastern Cuba) but faces chronic investment constraints due to the US trade embargo and infrastructure limitations.

Cobalt as a Byproduct Metal: Why Supply Cannot Be Easily Controlled

This is the most important structural fact about cobalt supply, and it is consistently underexplained.

Approximately 90% of cobalt is produced as a byproduct of mining other metals — primarily copper (in the DRC) and nickel (in Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, Russia). The miners decide how much metal to produce based on the economics of their primary product, not on cobalt prices.

What this means in practice:

If cobalt prices double tomorrow, a copper miner in the DRC does not automatically mine more cobalt. The cobalt is extracted because copper is being mined. The cobalt extraction rate is determined by metallurgy and processing capacity, not by cobalt price signals. A miner cannot simply dig more cobalt without also digging more copper.

This stands in sharp contrast to, say, a gold mine, where a price increase can directly motivate increased mining activity. For cobalt, the supply response to price is slow, indirect, and constrained by the economics of the host metal.

The implication: cobalt prices can spike significantly without triggering the supply increase that would normally dampen the price. The 2017–2018 cobalt price spike — when prices rose from roughly $25,000/tonne to over $95,000/tonne before collapsing — demonstrated this dynamic. The spike attracted attention but did not immediately generate new cobalt-specific supply because new mines take 5–10 years to develop.

LME Cobalt: The Pricing Benchmark

Cobalt is priced and traded on the London Metal Exchange (LME), where the LME Cobalt cash price serves as the global benchmark.

LME Cobalt contract specifications:

• Contract size: 1 metric tonne
• Minimum purity: 99.8% cobalt
• Approved brands: LME-approved brands only (major refined cobalt producers must register their brands for delivery)
• Price quotation: USD per metric tonne
• Settlement: Cash settlement or physical delivery at LME-approved warehouses

The LME Cobalt cash price in 2024 averaged roughly $25,000–$30,000/tonne, down sharply from the 2018 peak of over $95,000/tonne and also below the 2022 peak of roughly $82,000/tonne. The price decline reflected the combined effect of surging Indonesian HPAL production (rapidly increasing supply) and the LFP battery substitution trend (reducing demand growth expectations).

However, the LME cobalt price is a relatively thin market compared to LME copper or aluminium. Much of physical cobalt trading occurs in intermediate forms — cobalt hydroxide, cobalt sulfate — that are priced against the LME benchmark but traded in over-the-counter (OTC) bilateral contracts rather than on the exchange itself.

Fastmarkets and Metal Bulletin publish cobalt hydroxide and cobalt sulfate price assessments that are widely used in battery supply chain contracts, particularly for Indonesian and DRC hydroxide product.

The LFP Substitution Threat: What Cobalt-Free Batteries Mean

The single most significant long-term demand risk for cobalt is the rise of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery chemistry.

LFP batteries contain zero cobalt. They use a lithium iron phosphate cathode — iron and phosphate being among the most abundant and cheapest materials on earth. The trade-off: LFP batteries have lower energy density than NMC batteries (meaning a heavier battery for the same range in an EV), but they are cheaper, safer (no cobalt-related thermal runaway risk), and cycle more times before degrading.

Chinese EV manufacturers — led by BYD and CATL — adopted LFP aggressively from around 2021. By 2023, LFP batteries accounted for approximately 40% of global EV battery installations (by capacity). BYD’s best-selling EV models use LFP exclusively.

Tesla began using LFP in its standard-range Model 3 in 2021. Volkswagen announced intentions to use LFP in its entry-level EVs. The trend is clear: LFP is capturing the high-volume, lower-cost segment of the EV market.

The cobalt market’s medium-term outlook depends on how far LFP adoption extends into the premium EV segment (where NMC’s higher energy density is more valued) and into markets outside China. For the moment, NMC retains dominance in premium long-range EVs in Western markets.

The net effect on cobalt demand is a downward revision to growth expectations, not a collapse. Even as LFP gains market share, total EV production is growing fast enough that NMC volumes may still increase in absolute terms. But the trajectory has shifted from the hypergrowth scenario that drove cobalt prices to $95,000/tonne in 2018.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which country produces the most cobalt?

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is by far the world’s largest cobalt producer, accounting for approximately 84% of global mine production at roughly 230,000 metric tonnes per year. Indonesia is second at approximately 44,000 MT — a position it reached only recently, with output growing over 1,500% between 2021 and 2024 due to HPAL nickel processing projects.

Why is cobalt so important for electric vehicles?

Cobalt is a key component of the NMC (nickel manganese cobalt) and NCA (nickel cobalt aluminium) cathode chemistries used in most lithium-ion EV batteries. It stabilises the cathode structure, improves energy density, and reduces thermal runaway risk. Battery manufacturers have reduced cobalt content per battery over time, but most premium EV batteries still contain cobalt. LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries are cobalt-free and gaining significant market share.

What is LFP and why does it threaten cobalt demand?

LFP stands for lithium iron phosphate — a battery chemistry that uses no cobalt. LFP batteries are cheaper and safer than NMC batteries but have lower energy density (less range per kilogram of battery). Chinese EV manufacturers adopted LFP extensively from 2021, and by 2023 LFP accounted for roughly 40% of global EV battery installations. If LFP adoption continues to grow into premium EV segments, cobalt demand growth will be significantly lower than previously projected.

Why is cobalt supply so hard to expand?

About 90% of cobalt is produced as a byproduct of mining copper (in the DRC) or nickel (in Indonesia, Philippines, and elsewhere). Miners make production decisions based on the economics of their primary metal, not cobalt. When cobalt prices rise, there is no direct supply response — the cobalt supply depends on copper and nickel mining rates. New dedicated cobalt mines would require 5–10 years to develop. This structural inflexibility creates the conditions for dramatic price spikes.

How is cobalt priced?

The London Metal Exchange (LME) Cobalt cash price is the global benchmark, quoted in USD per metric tonne for 99.8%-pure cobalt. In 2024, LME cobalt averaged roughly $25,000–$30,000/tonne, down from a 2018 peak above $95,000/tonne. Physical trading of cobalt in intermediate forms (cobalt hydroxide, cobalt sulfate) is priced via OTC contracts referenced to LME or to Fastmarkets/Metal Bulletin price assessments.

What role do Chinese companies play in cobalt supply?

Chinese companies have invested aggressively in cobalt production and processing. Estimates suggest Chinese-invested entities control around 46% or more of global mined cobalt supply by throughput. In the DRC, Chinese companies (CMOC, Huayou Cobalt, and others) control major mining operations. In Indonesia, nearly all HPAL cobalt production is in Chinese-invested joint ventures. China also dominates cobalt processing — virtually all cobalt hydroxide and cobalt sulfate produced globally passes through Chinese refineries before entering battery supply chains.

Key Takeaways

• The DRC produces approximately 84% of the world’s cobalt (around 230,000 MT/year), making it the most concentrated major industrial metal supply in the world.
• Indonesia is the second-largest producer at approximately 44,000 MT/year — a position achieved through a 1,500%+ production increase between 2021 and 2024, driven by HPAL nickel processing technology.
• Approximately 90% of cobalt is produced as a byproduct of copper and nickel mining, meaning supply cannot be easily expanded in response to cobalt price signals.
• Chinese companies control an estimated 46%+ of global mined cobalt supply and dominate virtually all cobalt processing, creating a significant concentration of market power in the supply chain.
• LME Cobalt (99.8% purity, 1 MT contract, priced in USD/tonne) is the global pricing benchmark; physical cobalt hydroxide and sulfate trade OTC at prices referenced to LME or Fastmarkets assessments.
• LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries contain zero cobalt and captured roughly 40% of global EV battery installations by 2023 — the most significant long-term demand risk for cobalt.
• Australia holds approximately 20% of global cobalt reserves (1.7 million MT) but produces only about 2% of global supply — a reserve base that could support significant future production if economics support investment.
• The cobalt price collapsed from $95,000/tonne in 2018 to $25,000–$30,000/tonne in 2024, driven by surging Indonesian HPAL supply and LFP substitution reducing demand growth expectations.

Related Reading

To deepen your understanding of the topics covered in this article, explore these related guides: the processing stages from artisanal mine to refined chemical, another critical mineral chain dominated by a single producing nation and the nickel laterite operations that co-produce cobalt.