Last week, the overall cobalt market continued its weak off-season performance, with market prices across all product categories accelerating downward and trading volumes remaining thin. On the supply side, low-priced old inventories of electrolytic cobalt continued to be released, while expectations of concentrated arrivals of cobalt intermediates from the DRC, combined with persistently high social inventories, kept the circulation channel well supplied. Holders accelerated their pace of price reductions to offload cargoes. In the cobalt sulfate segment, low-cost resources such as recycled materials and re-dissolved electrolytic cobalt kept exerting pressure on the market, with a few producers slashing their quotations significantly, thereby dragging down the overall transaction prices. Although primary smelters held firm on their quotes due to high-cost inventories, they could not prevent prices from declining further.