Last week, China's cobalt market as a whole continued its weak off-season performance, with market prices across all product categories accelerating their downward movement and trading remaining thin. On the supply side, the persistent release of low-cost old inventories of electrolytic cobalt, together with expectations of concentrated arrivals of cobalt intermediates from the DRC and persistently high social inventories, kept the circulation channel well-supplied, prompting holders to step up destocking at reduced prices. In the cobalt sulfate segment, low-cost resources such as recycled materials and re-dissolved electrolytic cobalt continued to exert pressure on the market, with a few producers slashing their offers sharply, thereby pulling down the overall transaction prices. Although primary smelters stood firm on their quotations due to high-cost inventories, they were unable to stem the price decline.