SMM Weekly Forecast on China’s Domestic Cobalt Market (Sep. 6-10)

SHANGHAI, Sep. 3 (SMM) -- China’s 280 kt importing volume of cobalt from January to July 2010 equals to total importing volume in 2009. Conservatively speaking, China’s inventories for metal and raw material were around 15 kt, which will curb prices from rising up. In addition, the increasing expansion may lead to vicious circle that prices for raw material will stay at high level and prices for cobalt will decline steadily. In addition, slow recovery of downstream demand will also reduce support for cobalt prices.

Growing output of refined cobalt will hamper cobalt prices from rising. It is expected that prices for refined cobalt will linger around RMB 330,000-350,000/mt in the following week. Mainstream traded prices will be between RMB 73,000-74,000/mt for cobalt chloride, RMB 235/kg for tricobalt tetroxide and RMB 240/kg for lithium cobalt oxide.

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