Cobalt Price per Ton: Chart and Drivers

How much is cobalt per ton right now?

Refined cobalt metal in Rotterdam was about US$53,600 per metric ton (US$24.33 per pound) on 2 October 2026, according to the Shanghai Metals Market figures collected by Critical Minerals News. Treat it as a news-site report of SMM data, not an exchange quote; the Cobalt Institute’s year-end 2025 level of US$24.75 per pound is close to it. The same page shows the China domestic price at US$38,955 per ton on 30 September 2026, including 13% VAT, which is why two quotes for “the cobalt price” can sit about US$14,700 apart. A metric ton (also written tonne) is 1,000 kg, or 2,204.62 lb, so every US$1 per pound adds US$2,205 per ton.

Cobalt is a small market. The USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries put world mine output at about 310,000 tons in 2025 (estimate), against more than 23 million tons of copper. A change in one country’s export rules can move the whole price, and that is what happened in 2025.

Sources: Cobalt Institute, Cobalt Market Report 2025 (Benchmark Mineral Intelligence data, May 2026) for the 2025 rows, and Critical Minerals News (SMM data) for the 2026 rows. Per-ton figures are the per-pound prices multiplied by 2,204.62 and rounded. The two series come from different assessors, so read the change between them as a guide, not an exact comparison.

Cobalt price history: from a low to a policy-driven rally

Cobalt fell from mid-2022 to historic lows in early 2025. By mid-February 2025, cobalt hydroxide delivered to China was as low as US$5.60 per pound, at or below what many producers spend to make it, according to the Cobalt Institute report. On 22 February 2025 the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) banned cobalt exports. Over the year, metal rose 130%, sulphate 266% and hydroxide more than 300%.

Chart

Cobalt metal price, January 2025 to October 2026

US$ per pound, Europe/Rotterdam metal; mixed assessors

The US Geological Survey tells the same story with annual averages. The London Metal Exchange (LME) cash price averaged US$28.83 per pound in 2022, US$11.84 in 2024 and an estimated US$15 in 2025. That 2025 average looks modest because the year began near US$11 and ended near US$25.

Why the cobalt price moves: DRC export ban and quotas

The DRC mines most of the world’s cobalt, as a by-product of copper. The USGS lists 230,000 tons of DRC output out of 310,000 tons worldwide in 2025 (estimate), roughly three quarters. The Cobalt Institute uses a different basis, global mined supply of 270,000 tons with the DRC at 73%. Both agree on the point that matters: one country controls the supply.

The ban, as the Cobalt Institute describes it, ran in steps:

• 22 February 2025: four-month export ban starts.
• 21 June 2025: ban extended for three months.
• 15 October 2025: the ban ends and, from 16 October, exports resume under a quota system (Cobalt Institute quarterly update). The regulator ARECOMS (Autorité de Régulation et de Contrôle des Marchés des Substances Minérales Stratégiques) replaces the ban, initially until the end of 2027. The Q4 2025 quota was 18,125 tons of cobalt.
• 2026: a quota of 87,000 tons (7,250 tons a month) plus a strategic quota of 9,600 tons, with ARECOMS able to adjust it every quarter.

Exporters must prepay a 10% mining royalty on their maximum quota at the market price and send a control sample of each shipment for testing. In February 2026 ARECOMS briefly halted exports from Lualaba province after assay discrepancies. Because the ban stopped sales while mines kept digging, cobalt piled up inside the DRC and the shortage showed up in other countries. Indonesia, which makes cobalt as a by-product of nickel, produced 42.5 thousand tons in 2025 (up 29%) and is now the second-largest source, with a 14% share.

Metal, sulphate and hydroxide prices compared

No single price covers all cobalt. Buyers and sellers use three main products, and each trades differently:

• Cobalt metal is the exchange benchmark. The LME contract covers standard-grade metal of at least 99.8% cobalt in 1-ton lots. Superalloys for jet engines and hard metals use it.
• Cobalt sulphate is the chemical used in most electric-vehicle battery cathodes. The Cobalt Institute reports an increase from RMB 25,750 to RMB 94,250 per ton in 2025 (China ex-works).
• Cobalt hydroxide is the intermediate product the DRC ships to Chinese refiners. It contains roughly 20% to 40% cobalt. It is not traded on an exchange; it is sold at a percentage of the metal price, called the payable.

This is why a “cobalt ore price” does not exist as a single number. A miner is paid for the cobalt inside the ore or concentrate, after the refiner takes its share. The calculator below turns a hydroxide shipment into a gross value so you can test different payables.

Top cobalt-mining countries

Supply is more concentrated than for almost any other battery metal. The chart shows 2025 estimated mine production for seven selected countries from the USGS (it leaves out some smaller producers, such as China and Cuba at 2,000 tons each). Reserves follow the same pattern: the DRC holds 6 million of the 12 million tons the USGS counts worldwide, with Australia (1.7 million) and Indonesia (0.76 million) next.

Chart

Cobalt mine production by country, 2025 estimate

Thousand metric tons of contained cobalt, selected countries

Cobalt price versus copper price

Most DRC cobalt comes out of copper mines, so the two metals share the same geology and some of the same risks. Copper trades in a far bigger market. COMEX copper stood at about US$6.52 per pound in mid-October 2026 per MetalCharts, which works out to about US$14,375 per ton, with a record high of US$6.72 on 13 May 2026. Cobalt metal therefore costs roughly 3.7 times as much per pound as copper, but the world mines about 75 times less of it.

Chart

Copper mine production by country, 2025 estimate

Million metric tons of contained copper

The USGS gives the COMEX first-position copper price as an average of 421.6 US cents per pound in 2024 and 480 cents in 2025 (estimate). Chile produced 5.3 million tons of copper in 2025 (estimate), the DRC 3.2 million and Peru 2.7 million out of about 23 million. Copper moves with construction, power grids and electric vehicles; cobalt moves with battery chemistry and DRC policy. For a closer look at where copper occurs, read our guide to copper deposits, types and top countries and the one on porphyry copper deposits.

▶ Copper mining explained: why an electric vehicle starts as a hole in Chile. · 6:03

US prices and buyers

The USGS gives a clear picture of a large importing country. In 2025 the United States mined an estimated 300 tons of cobalt, at the Eagle Mine in Michigan, which produces nickel concentrate that contains cobalt and is shipped abroad for processing. Imports for consumption were an estimated 14,000 tons, and recycled scrap supplied another 2,000 tons. Net import reliance was 79% of apparent consumption. The USGS values US cobalt consumption at about US$320 million for 2025 (estimate).

Chart

Two cobalt price benchmarks, 2024 and 2025

Annual average, US$ per pound

The USGS average US spot price for cathode was US$21 per pound for 2025 (estimate), against US$15 for LME cash. US buyers therefore paid a premium over the London benchmark of about US$6 per pound, or roughly US$13,000 per ton, on that annual average. By use, an estimated 51% went into superalloys, 25% into chemicals, 15% into other metal uses and 9% into cemented carbides.

How a mining project values its cobalt

Most new cobalt projects outside the DRC are not pure cobalt mines. Cobalt is a by-product of nickel or copper, and a project’s economics depend on its by-product credit: the cobalt revenue that offsets the cost of the main metal. Three terms matter when you read a company report. Grade is the cobalt content of the rock, usually in parts per million (ppm) or percent. Payable is the share of the metal price a refiner pays for the cobalt in your product. Recovery is the share of the cobalt in the ground that the plant actually captures.

For example, a project that sells hydroxide with 30% cobalt, at a payable of 55% of the metal price, earns far less per ton than the headline cobalt price suggests. A company that quotes a “resource value” at the full metal price is ignoring payables, recovery and royalty. When you compare projects, ask for the assumption table and change the price input yourself, which is what the calculator does.

Hydroxide value calculator

Use the calculator on this page to estimate what a shipment of hydroxide is worth at the metal price you choose. The default numbers are examples, not market data.

What Amnesty International’s reports found

Amnesty International has published two major investigations on cobalt in the DRC. In January 2016, with the African Resources Watch group (Afrewatch), it published “This is what we die for” (Amnesty International, 2016). The report found children working up to 12 hours a day in artisanal mines, carrying heavy loads for US$1 to US$2 a day, and cited, as reported by Anadolu Agency, UNICEF’s estimate of about 40,000 children working in mines across southern DRC in 2014. It traced cobalt through a trader and a processor to battery makers and accused electronics and car brands of doing too little to check where their cobalt came from.

In September 2023 Amnesty and the Congolese group IBGDH published “Powering Change or Business as Usual?”, a 100-page report on industrial mines. The groups interviewed more than 130 people at six projects around Kolwezi in Lualaba province and described forced evictions of whole communities (Amnesty UK summary). One example was the Cité Gécamines neighbourhood, home to about 39,000 people, next to the open-pit mine run by COMMUS, a joint venture between Zijin Mining and the state company Gécamines. These are Amnesty’s findings; the companies named have their own published responses.

The price links back to these reports. The Cobalt Institute notes that higher prices tend to stimulate artisanal mining. Its account also says the state buyer Entreprise Générale du Cobalt (EGC) has a monthly quota of 470 tons, which caps legal artisanal sales and is meant to improve tracing. For a longer account of the human-rights record, see our article on cobalt mining in the DRC and its ethical challenges.

Supply chain checks and due diligence rules

Buyers now face legal checks, not only Amnesty campaigns. The European Union’s Batteries Regulation includes supply-chain due diligence rules for raw materials that include cobalt. Regulation (EU) 2025/1561, published in the Official Journal on 30 July 2025, moved the start of these duties from 18 August 2025 to 18 August 2027.

In practice a buyer asks four questions: which mine did the cobalt come from, did it pass through artisanal hands, which refiner processed it, and is there an audit report? Chain-of-custody tools such as product traceability software record these steps, and satellite images can help screen a licence area for signs of ground disturbance.

Environmental impact of cobalt and copper mining

Mines clear land, move rock and use water and power. The video below explains seven common impacts of mining in plain words. Cobalt adds a smaller extra issue: most of it is a by-product, so the footprint is shared with copper or nickel and cannot be assigned to cobalt alone.

▶ The seven environmental impacts of mining, explained in clay. · 2:31

What to watch in cobalt prices next

Four facts decide the next move, in the Cobalt Institute’s reading and in the USGS data:

• DRC quotas. Policy, not demand, set the price in 2025. ARECOMS can change quotas every quarter, and the system runs to the end of 2027.
• Indonesia. It is expected to be the largest source of supply growth over the next five years. Its nickel plants depend on imported sulphur, 75% of which comes from the Middle East.
• Stocks and balance. The mine-supply balance was a surplus of 19,000 tons in 2025, down from 48,000 tons in 2024.
• Demand mix. The USGS says about 51% of US cobalt use is in superalloys, mainly aircraft engines. The US imports most of what it uses, with a net import reliance of 79% in 2025 (estimate).

The Shanghai domestic price fell 11.3% between 3 August and 4 September 2026 and a further 14.0% by 30 September, while the Rotterdam price fell about 4.7% between 4 September and 2 October, per Critical Minerals News. Prices can reverse quickly; check a live source before using any number on this page.

How these figures were checked

Prices are tied to a named assessor and date. Annual averages come from the USGS, annual percentage moves and DRC quota rules from the Cobalt Institute report (written by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence for the Cobalt Congress in May 2026), and recent monthly quotes from Critical Minerals News, which reports Shanghai Metals Market data. Where two sources use a different basis, for example 270,000 or 310,000 tons of world cobalt supply, both are shown with their names. Prices are not forecasts and the page does not say whether to buy or sell anything.

Finding cobalt from space

For explorers, cobalt is hard to see directly. Satellite surveys look for the host rock and alteration patterns that go with sediment-hosted copper, nickel laterite or nickel-copper sulphide systems, and rank the ground worth sampling. The result is an exploration target, not a resource estimate. The video below shows how satellite screening is used to cut the cost of drilling in the wrong place.

▶ Mineral exploration from space: where to drill. · 4:26

We cover a connected topic in Yttrium Metal Price per Ton: Chart and Drivers.

For a closer look at a related question, see our guide: Bauxite Price per Ton: Chart and Drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the cobalt price per ton today?

Rotterdam cobalt metal was about US$53,600 per metric ton on 2 October 2026, and the China domestic price was about US$38,955 on 30 September 2026 (Critical Minerals News, from SMM data). Check the LME or Fastmarkets for a live quote.

How much is cobalt worth per pound?

About US$24.33 per pound at the Rotterdam price on 2 October 2026. Divide a per-ton price by 2,204.62 to convert.

Why did the cobalt price rise so much?

The DRC banned exports on 22 February 2025 and then introduced quotas. According to the Cobalt Institute, metal rose 130% over the year, sulphate 266% and hydroxide more than 300%.

Which country produces the most cobalt?

The DRC. The USGS estimates 230,000 tons of its 310,000-ton world total for 2025. Indonesia is second at 44,000 tons.

Is there a price for cobalt ore?

Not as a single quote. Ore and hydroxide are paid as a percentage of the cobalt metal price, minus refining costs, so the value depends on grade and the payable terms in each contract.

How is the cobalt price different from the copper price?

Cobalt is quoted per pound or ton at a far higher level than copper and trades in a market about one seventy-fifth of the size by tonnage. COMEX copper was US$6.52 per pound on 15 October 2026.

What has Amnesty International said about cobalt mining?

Its 2016 report documented child labour in artisanal mines in southern DRC. Its 2023 report, with IBGDH, documented forced evictions around industrial mines near Kolwezi.

Does the DRC still limit cobalt exports?

Yes. The Cobalt Institute says the quota system was announced to run until the end of 2027, with a 2026 quota of 87,000 tons plus 9,600 tons of strategic quota, on top of the 18,125 tons allocated for 2025 that were rolled into 2026.

Where is cobalt refined?

China produced 79% of the 240,000 tons of refined cobalt in 2025, per the Cobalt Institute. Indonesia is now the third-largest refined supplier.

Can I use these figures for investment decisions?

No. This page gives dated facts only. Prices change daily and this is not investment advice.