China's cobalt market was stable during China's National Day holiday over October 1-8, based on Mysteel's observation. While the supply tightness persists, some players expect the cobalt intermediates prices to hit $20/lb in the future.
Source: Mysteel
According to Mysteel's assessment, the prices of cobalt sulfate and cobalt chloride stand at Yuan 64,000-68,000/tonne and Yuan 78,000-81,000/tonne respectively. During the National Day holiday, cobalt salt prices remained stable with limited transactions.
Most manufacturers and traders have temporarily halted public offers for cobalt sulfate, adopting a wait-and-see approach with transaction prices negotiated on a case-by-case basis. As raw material inventories continue to deplete, spot prices are poised to rise further. Some companies intend to sell at around Yuan 68,000/tonne or even higher.
The supply of cobalt chloride has been relatively concentrated, with small and medium-sized smelters holding limited spot inventories. While expectations for higher intermediate prices persist, there are no market quotations with referring value, as smelters have almost entirely suspended offers. Downstream, leading end-users are actively making inquiries, with current expected transaction prices for cobalt chloride around Yuan 80,000/tonne. The future price trend of cobalt chloride will largely follow the changes in raw material costs.
During the National Day holiday, the electrolytic cobalt prices on Wuxi Exchange hovered rangebound around Yuan 340,000/tonne. Most manufacturers and traders suspended their quotations during the holiday period. Tight raw material inventories provided some support to prices, keeping the prices on the uptrend.
However, the electrolytic cobalt price gap between domestic and international has narrowed, leading to weak export demand. Domestically, demand from downstream superalloy and magnetic material manufacturers has not shown significant growth, resulting in generally subdued procurement both domestically and internationally. Therefore, the producers stick to production reduction strategies, as profit margins for electrolytic cobalt are limited.
On the supply side, Co3O4 producers continue to focus on tolling processing and fulfilling long-term orders. October remains the seasonal peak season for consumer electronics, but downstream demand is expected to be slightly softer compared to September. Leading companies have cut their production scheduling, while the production pace of small and medium-sized enterprises remains largely unchanged.
Written by Aggie Hu, huchenying@mysteel.com
