Recently, the global cobalt market has undergone significant changes due to the cobalt raw material export ban implemented by the DRC government. This policy has impacted the world's largest cobalt supply source, accelerating the reconfiguration of the supply chain and causing market participants' concerns about cobalt resource supply security, diversified sources, and price transparency to surge.
Against this backdrop, Indonesia has emerged as a major MHP production center, leveraging its rapidly developing nickel-cobalt hydrometallurgy projects (HPAL). As a key intermediate product for cobalt extraction, the market value and pricing mechanism of the cobalt content in Indonesia's MHP have garnered significant attention from both upstream and downstream players in the industry chain.
In response to market changes and to meet the urgent demand of users for price discovery of diversified cobalt raw materials, as well as to enhance market information transparency, SMM has decided:
Starting from August 1, 2025, to officially launch and publish the ‘SMM Indonesia Cobalt in MHP, outright price, FOB Indonesia, $/cobalt tonne’
Details of this price point are as follows:
- Description：SMM Indonesia Cobalt in MHP, outright price, FOB Indonesia, $/cobalt tonne
- Quality：on dry basis，Ni 30-45%，Co 1-6%，Al 1% max, Mn 10% max, Mg 5% max，Fe 2% max
- Quantity：Minimum 50 Cobalt tonnes
- Definition：FOB Indoneisa main ports
- Brand Listing：Huayue、Huafei、Lygend、QMB New Energy
- Timing：1-3 Months
- Unit：USD/cobalt tonne, inferred basis of the payable range, Cobalt Sulphate or Cobalt Metal.
- Payment Terms：L/C/TT at sight in USD, or other payments normalized
- Pulication；Daily, by 11am Jakarta Time
SMM Nickel Industry Research Department
July 29, 2025
