The overall cobalt market is in the traditional off-season for demand. Downstream users, such as new energy battery precursors and 3C digital products, predominantly adopt need-based procurement, showing weak willingness to build inventories, while overall order volumes remain low. At the same time, spot inventories in the market are ample, and no supply tightness has emerged.The export quota controls imposed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have led to a contraction in cobalt ore supply. Concurrently, Indonesia's inclusion of associated cobalt from nickel ores into its pricing framework has pushed up some production costs. In addition, the newly added cobalt production capacity and increased cobalt recycling volumes in Indonesia have, to a certain extent, offset the supply reduction from the DRC.