Global cobalt resources, production and future sources of supply

Cobalt is a critical metal with numerous applications in new and green technologies. Global demand, particularly for use in lithium-ion batteries, is forecast to increase rapidly. Consequently, to ensure security of cobalt supply, it is important to diversify the cobalt supply base, to expand our knowledge of its occurrence in known mineral deposits and to identify new resources. Cobalt may be enriched in a variety of geological settings. The most important deposit types with cobalt resource potential are sediment-hosted stratabound copper deposits, nickel-cobalt laterite deposits and magmatic nickel-copper deposits. About 60 per cent of mined cobalt is a by-product of copper mining, mainly in the Central African Copperbelt. The remainder is derived from several other deposit types, although less than two per cent is from primary cobalt producers such as Bou Azzer in Morocco. Potential new onshore sources of cobalt are widespread in the United States, Canada, Australia, the DRC, Zambia and Madagascar, and offshore in deep-sea manganese nodules and cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts.