The figure contrasts with the 160,000 tonnes of cobalt mined last year, highlighting one of the biggest issues the car industry faces as it goes electric — lack of battery metals.
Not surprisingly, prices for cobalt, nickel, lithium and copper have skyrocketed. Cobalt has nearly tripled in price since the start of 2021. Nickel turned so wild in March the London Metal Exchange (LME) had to suspend trading.
Battery-makers have responded by using more lithium-iron-posphate chemistry, which doesn’t use either cobalt or nickel, but that tightens up the lithium market itself with spot prices doubling since the start of the year.
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence estimates the global lithium industry needs as much as $42 billion of investment by the end of the decade in order to meet demand
MINING.COM’s EV Metal Index, which tracks the value of battery metals in newly registered passenger EVs (including…
