Indonesia has emerged as the world’s second-largest supplier of cobalt, contributing to a sharp fall in the price of the battery metal and adding to western anxieties about Beijing’s dominance across the electric car supply chain.
The Southeast Asian country generated 9,500 tonnes of cobalt last year — 5 per cent of the global supply — up from minimal volumes before 2021, according to an annual market report by the Cobalt Institute, an industry group. That means it has overtaken established producers Australia and the Philippines.
The surge in the supply of Indonesian cobalt — a byproduct from its rapidly growing nickel industry — has helped drive prices down from $40 per pound in April last year to about $15, according to Fastmarkets.
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