As China's cobalt reserves of only 80,000 tons, accounting for 1.1% of global reserves, bullish on the future trend of cobalt prices hedge funds have to buy spot. Although the London Futures Exchange has a cobalt price contract (LME cobalt), the trading volume is very small.

be facing (us)li-ion batteryThe industry is the largest application field of cobalt, after the country announced a new version of the new energy vehicle subsidy policy, in order to obtain high-grade subsidies, car manufacturers to improve the energy density requirements of the battery, the ternary route quickly popular, the short term led to the battery manufacturers to increase the nickel, cobalt and other ternary materials such as the demand for basic small metals.

Goldman Sachs estimates that demand for cobalt ore from China's lithium battery industry will double by 2025.

In addition, the resource concentration of cobalt ore is very high, the world's top six cobalt producers in the world's combined production has accounted for more than 60%, the giant has a very strong pricing power. And because cobalt is a small metal, market speculation is easier. Africa Congo (DRC) is the world's richest cobalt reserves, up to 3.4 million tons. In contrast, China's cobalt reserves of only 80,000 tons, accounting for global reserves of 1.1%. this domestic scarce metal is very easy to be funds speculation.

"Cobalt this product is more special, insensitive to price, that is, no matter how high your price rises, the supply is not likely to increase very quickly, of course, if it rises to a certain extent, the downstream enterprises really can not afford it, the demand goes down, that is another story." A metal researcher at Changjiang Futures said.