[Cobalt] Cobalt Intermediate Products Weekly Review

Published: Aug 13, 2026 17:34

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This week, the cobalt intermediate product market remained in a stalemate, with actual trading still in a vacuum. Recently, some miners launched tenders with indicative prices at around $21-22/lb, but amid continued weakness in cobalt salts and refined cobalt, downstream buyers and traders saw their psychological price levels pull back to around $17-19/lb, leaving a wide price spread between buyers and sellers; tenders continued to fail. Faced with the persistent stalemate, some miners have begun to consider changing their strategy, suspending direct sales of intermediate products and instead seeking toll manufacturers to process them into refined cobalt before selling, to avoid the risk of losses from direct sales at current low prices. In the short term, although miners are willing to hold prices firm, the lack of actual downstream purchasing support leaves the market locked in a stalemate, and price stabilization still awaits actual transactions to materialize.

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