The price of cobalt, a key metal used to manufacture electric vehicle batteries, dropped to its lowest point in nearly a decade last week amid mounting concerns that Chinese companies are flooding the market.
Despite persistently low prices, CMOC Group, the world’s largest cobalt miner, smashed output records last year and forecasted that it plans to do it again in 2025. The Chinese company, for its part, says the surge in cobalt production is a result of increased copper output (cobalt is a byproduct of copper).