Cobalt’s African bottlenecks magnified by coronavirus

Logistical concerns in the cobalt supply chain escalated through late Q1 2020 and into Q2 as growing delays at the main border crossing between Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) compounded on disruption at ports in South Africa.

Africa had been largely unaffected by the coronavirus until March with operations continuing as normal across the cobalt supply chain. However, the past month has seen logistical issues develop which have seen bottlenecks in the next stages of the supply chain.

Caspar Rawles, Head of Price Assessments at Benchmark Minerals explained, “Whilst initially we saw a delayed impact from . . .