Cobalt has unique physical and chemical properties, making it an important raw material in aerospace, petrochemical, glass manufacturing and pharmaceutical fields. Cobalt plays an important role in the development of strategic emerging industries. The content of cobalt in the crust is very low, the average abundance of cobalt in the crust is only 0.0025%, and 90% of cobalt in the crust is dispersed. In nature, cobalt is mostly associated with copper, nickel and iron, and there is no independent cobalt deposit.
1. Cobalt minerals and deposit types
There are more than one hundred kinds of cobalt bearing minerals in nature, and more than 59 kinds of cobalt as a basic element. But at present, the economic significance of cobalt minerals are mainly cobalt arsenide, sulfide and oxide. The common cobalt minerals in industry are cobaltite, thiocobaltite, cobaltite, skutterudite and cobalt nickel pyrite, and the hydrocobaltite and heterohydrocobaltite in supergene minerals.
In addition, at present, the commercial cobalt resources are all from terrestrial cobalt deposits. The terrestrial cobalt deposits mainly include sedimentary layered copper cobalt deposits, magmatic nickel copper cobalt platinum sulfide deposits, hydrothermal cobalt deposits and weathered laterite nickel cobalt deposits. In addition to these four major types of cobalt deposits, there are some other types of cobalt deposits with smaller resources, such as black shale type nickel copper zinc cobalt deposits, Mississippi valley type lead zinc cobalt nickel sulfide deposits, etc. these types of deposits only account for 1% of the known global cobalt resources and 8% of the terrestrial cobalt resources.
The resources, types, quantity and grade of the main deposits in the world are as follows:
Table 1: main types and characteristics of cobalt deposits
2. Distribution of global cobalt resources and reserves
In 2018, the proven reserves of cobalt resources in the world are 6.875 million tons, and the output of cobalt is 135700 tons. Among them, DRC is the country with the largest cobalt reserves in the world and the highest cobalt production. In 2018, DRC's Cobalt reserves accounted for 49.45% of the global reserves and its production accounted for 66.32% of the global cobalt production, with a very high concentration. Australia and Cuba are the second and third countries in terms of reserves, accounting for 17.45% and 7.27% of the world's reserves, respectively, while the reserves of other countries are less than 5%.
Chart 2: distribution of global cobalt reserves (in tons,%)
3. Global output of cobalt resources
In 2018, the global cobalt output reached 135700 tons, of which the output of DRC was 90000 tons, accounting for 66.32%; other countries with more than 4000 tons of output were Russia, Cuba, Australia and the Philippines, accounting for 4.35%, 3.61%, 3.46% and 3.39% respectively. On the whole, Congo is the best in cobalt production and supply.
Chart 3: Global cobalt production distribution (unit: ton,%)
However, from the perspective of enterprises, the situation is different. The major cobalt mining companies in the world are Glencore company, Luomo group, chemaf company, Jinchuan Group and sherit company. Glencore controls 25% of the world's proven cobalt reserves, accounting for about 30% of the world's annual cobalt production, which has a decisive influence on the global supply of cobalt. In 2018, the output of the world's top ten cobalt mining companies accounted for 75.45% of the global output of cobalt, and the production concentration was relatively high. Four companies in China entered the top ten of cobalt production.
Chart 4: output and share of the world's top 10 cobalt mining companies (unit: ton,%)
4. Application fields of global cobalt resources
At present, the excellent properties of cobalt make it widely used in many fields. Cobalt products are mainly used in battery materials, catalysts, pigments, superalloys, cemented carbide and magnetic materials in the form of chemicals and metals. At present, the battery industry is the industry that consumes the most cobalt. Cobalt is mainly used to prepare cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries. Cobalt can improve the stability and safety of lithium-ion batteries, improve the cycle performance of batteries, and thus improve the life of batteries. Cobalt based superalloys composed of cobalt, nickel, chromium, molybdenum and tungsten can maintain high strength, wear resistance and corrosion resistance at high temperature, and are the main raw materials for jet engines and gas turbines. Therefore, the preparation of superalloys is also the main application field of cobalt.
According to the global cobalt application report published by the international cobalt Industry Association (CI) in 2019, the application of cobalt in various industries is as follows:
Chart 5: global application of cobalt in various fields in 2018 (unit:%)