The unique physical and chemical properties of cobalt make it an important raw material in the fields of aerospace, petrochemical, glass manufacturing and medicine. Cobalt plays an important role in the development of strategic emerging industries. The content of cobalt in the crust is very low, the average abundance of cobalt in the crust is only 0.0025%, and 90% of cobalt in the crust is in a dispersed state. In nature, cobalt is mostly associated with copper, nickel, iron and other minerals, and there is no independent cobalt deposit.
1. Cobalt minerals and deposit types
There are more than 100 kinds of minerals containing cobalt in nature, and more than 59 kinds of minerals containing cobalt as a basic element. But at present, there are mainly three kinds of cobalt minerals with economic significance: arsenide, sulfide and oxide. The common cobalt minerals in industry are cobaltite, thiocobaltite, cobaltite, cobaltite and cobaltite, as well as cobaltite and heterocobaltite in supergene minerals.
In addition, at present, the commercial cobalt resources of human beings are all from the land cobalt deposits. The land cobalt deposits mainly include sedimentary stratiform copper cobalt deposits, magmatic nickel copper cobalt platinum group deposits, hydrothermal cobalt deposits and weathered laterite nickel cobalt deposits. In addition to the four main types of cobalt deposits, there are other types of cobalt deposits with small resources, such as black shale type nickel copper zinc cobalt deposit, Mississippi valley type lead zinc cobalt nickel sulfide deposit and so on. These types of deposits account for only 1% of the known geosphere cobalt resources and 8% of the land cobalt resources.
The world's major mineral resources and types, resources and tastes are as follows:
Table 1: main types and characteristics of cobalt deposits
2. Distribution of global cobalt resources
In 2018, the global proven cobalt resource reserve is 6.875 million tons, and the cobalt output is 135700 tons. Among them, Congo gold is the country with the largest cobalt reserves in the world, and also the country with the highest cobalt production. In 2018, Congo gold's Cobalt reserves accounted for 49.45% of the global reserves, and its production accounted for 66.32% of the global cobalt production, with a very high concentration. Australia and Cuba are the second and third largest countries in terms of reserves, accounting for 17.45% and 7.27% of global reserves respectively, while the reserves of other countries are less than 5%.
Figure 2: distribution of global cobalt reserves (in tons,%)
3. Global cobalt resource output
In 2018, the global cobalt production reached 135700 tons, of which 90000 tons were produced in the DRC, accounting for 66.32%; other countries with production over 4000 tons were Russia, Cuba, Australia and the Philippines, accounting for 4.35%, 3.61%, 3.46% and 3.39% respectively. On the whole, Congo is the best in terms of cobalt production and supply.
Figure 3: distribution of global cobalt production (unit: ton,%)
However, from the perspective of enterprises, the situation is different. The main cobalt companies in the world are Glencore, lomo group, chemaf, Jinchuan Group and sherit, etc. Glencore controls 25% of the world's proven cobalt reserves, accounting for about 30% of the world's annual cobalt production, which has a decisive influence on the global cobalt supply. The world's top ten cobalt companies accounted for 75.45% of the world's cobalt production in 2018, with a relatively high degree of production concentration. China has four companies in the top ten.
Figure 4: ore production and share of the top ten cobalt companies in the world (unit: ton,%)
4. Application field of global cobalt resources
At present, cobalt has been widely used in many fields due to its excellent properties. Cobalt products are mainly used in battery materials, catalysts, pigments, superalloys, cemented carbide and magnetic materials in the form of chemicals and metals. At present, the battery industry consumes the most cobalt. Cobalt is mainly used to prepare positive materials for lithium-ion batteries. Cobalt can improve the stability and safety of lithium-ion batteries, improve the cycle performance of batteries, and thus improve the life of batteries. Cobalt based superalloys, which are composed of cobalt, nickel, chromium, molybdenum and tungsten, can maintain high strength, wear resistance and corrosion resistance at high temperature. They are the main raw materials for jet engines and gas turbines. Therefore, the preparation of superalloys is also the main application field of cobalt.
According to the global cobalt application report published by international cobalt Industry Association (CI) in 2019, the applications of cobalt in various industries are as follows:
Figure 5: application of cobalt in various fields around the world in 2018 (unit:%)