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If it hadn't been for making a fortune in the stock market by accident, Lao Zhang, the shareholder, might never have known something called "cobalt". Although China's stock market is not booming recently, several stocks with the word "cobalt" have been rising all the way. The first trading day of A shares this year was also driven by the concept of cobalt.

Similarly, in the spot market, the price of cobalt has doubled since last year. In March this year, the average price of cobalt metal quoted in the main domestic non-ferrous metal spot market exceeded 600000 yuan/ton. A year ago, the price of one ton of cobalt metal was less than 300000 yuan.

Cobalt dances with new energy vehicles

The price of cobalt, a gray and inconspicuous metal, has soared all the way, providing numerous profit opportunities for investors and speculators.

In the 2018 Hurun Global Rich List, a number of rich people from the new energy industry entered, and cobalt and lithium played an important role.

In fact, as early as 2008 and 2016, the price of cobalt has been relatively stable, and even was ignored for a time because of being too small.

So why is there an explosive growth in the near future? It is not difficult to find that the soaring cobalt price and the blowout of the new energy vehicle market have a very close and unified pace.

As an important strategic metal element, cobalt is widely used in battery materials and alloy manufacturing, and is also an essential raw material for ternary lithium batteries. However, ternary lithium battery is the mainstream of new energy vehicles, and there is no substitute at present.

Since the second half of 2016, as countries have given a timetable for banning the sale of fuel vehicles, the development of electric vehicles has been greatly accelerated, and the demand for cobalt, the cathode component of batteries, has also risen sharply.

It can be seen that ternary lithium battery is the largest power required to pull "cobalt". In 2016 alone, more than 80% of China's cobalt demand came from the battery sector.

According to the analysis, the demand for cobalt will reach more than 200000 tons by 2025.

According to the data, the world's proven cobalt resources are 25 million tons and the reserves are 7.2 million tons. The reserves are highly concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Australia and Cuba. These three countries account for 70% of the world's total reserves. China's reserves are only 80000 tons, accounting for 1.1% of the global reserves. Nearly 90% of China's cobalt raw material imports come from Congo.

Compared with the expected demand, the scarcity of cobalt was immediately highlighted.

Not long ago, Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of Glencore, the world's largest supplier of battery raw materials and mining giant, said: "If all the cobalt is in the hands of Chinese companies, then there will be no more electric cars produced in Europe". It is not hard to hear that Ivan Glasenberg's implication is that whoever owns cobalt will control the fate of electric vehicles.

"Cobalt", which is dancing in the investment market, has been beaten in the new energy automobile industry.

After oil and rare earth, a battle for "cobalt" is raging around the world, and many car companies and battery manufacturers have also laid out their own plans. For a time, the smoke of gunpowder is everywhere.

BMW, Volkswagen and others extend to the cobalt resource end at the upstream of the new energy vehicle industry chain while laying out new energy vehicles, so as to ensure the supply of raw materials.

Volkswagen said that it was promoting the establishment of a long-term supply contract guarantee to avoid material shortage. At the beginning of December last year, Volkswagen has invited cobalt raw material manufacturers to Wolfsburg headquarters for talks. BMW is also holding talks with suppliers of battery raw materials such as cobalt.

Battery trouble

The development of new energy vehicles has been restricted by important factors such as battery range and safety. In addition, the high cost of batteries is also a major concern of new energy vehicles.

"At present, the investment in research and development and manufacturing of power batteries is very high, and the cost of photovoltaic cells may account for more than half of the cost of cars". An Aichi professional said that this is mainly because the new energy vehicles are still in the market cultivation period, the output is not very large, and the price of raw materials required for batteries is too high, resulting in a very high share cost of early investment.

The high cobalt price has a great impact on the battery price. The professional made a settlement. Now the cost of 1KWh ternary battery is about 1200 yuan, and the cost of cobalt accounts for about 10%.

Although the price has gone up all the way, it is still difficult to get a "cobalt" with money.

A staff member of the sales department of Huayou Cobalt, one of the largest cobalt suppliers in China, said that it would take almost two months to get the goods when placing an order, and it would have to pay in advance.

Greenway, Huayou Cobalt and Jinchuan Group account for half of the market. From the perspective of supply, the situation of Greenland is similar to that of Huayou Cobalt. A person from the company also said that the volume of goods was not large.

Therefore, when people marvel at the "vigorous development" of China's new energy vehicles, some voices also point out that a large part of the dividend of China's new energy vehicle market has been taken away by foreign raw material manufacturers.

"The price rise of cobalt is also related to the conscious increase of pricing by foreign producers." An analyst in the securities industry said that the main producers of cobalt are abroad, and the pricing power is also in the hands of foreign producers.

Another insider also believes that cobalt resources are still under oligopoly control at this stage. From the perspective of supply and demand, there is no gap in cobalt supply in the short term, but the seller's market leads to the delivery volume and pricing right at the mine end.

As the largest cobalt producer in the world, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Parliament recently passed a new draft mining law. Cobalt is classified as a strategic metal and will be subject to a 5% patent tax.

Not subject to "cobalt"

Although the battle for "cobalt" was raging, some domestic main engine manufacturers producing new energy said that they did not need to worry too much about it.

Although the current price rise of cobalt and other raw materials has been transmitted to the power battery manufacturers, there is overcapacity in the domestic power battery, and the battery price even has a slight downward trend, so the automobile manufacturers are not under the pressure of cobalt price rise for the time being.

In addition, with the upgrading of battery technology, many manufacturers have reduced the consumption of cobalt to reduce production costs.

The high cost also forces power battery enterprises to reduce costs while improving battery energy density. The person said frankly that as a rare metal, "cobalt" would inevitably be in short supply. However, the development of the market must find a balance. If the technology depends too much on an unsustainable thing, then this technology will not last long.

The person said: It is irrational to think highly of the value of scarce resources such as cobalt forever. The diversification of energy has always been advocated by the country. Many technologies at present may be the future direction.

Some foreign institutions have long been aware of this. A German research machine said that "in order to reduce these risks and reduce the pressure on cobalt and lithium reserves, research activities should be expanded to the field of battery raw material replacement technology",

Toyota also said last month that it had found a way to make electric vehicles cheaper and less susceptible to the supply of cobalt and lithium.

The end of the Stone Age is not that the world has exhausted the stone tools, but that the continuous emergence of new technologies has ended the Stone Age. Similarly, for the new energy vehicle industry, the era of "cobalt" will be ended by the continuous emergence of new technologies.

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