Senior U.S. Diplomat Accuses Chinese Company of “Predatory” Tactics to Depress Cobalt Prices

File image of a cobalt processing facility in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. SAMIR TOUNSI / AFP

The top U.S. diplomat for energy and the environment, Jose Fernandez, accused Chinese mining giant CMOC of using “predatory” practices to intentionally flood the market with cobalt to suppress prices:

“What we’re seeing now, I feel, is a variation of predatory pricing […] In the case of cobalt, there’s a company called CMOC that is driving this oversupply, and that’s keeping prices down.

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