The goblin’s metal - Cobalt.
- Terraquota
- Jun 5
- 3 min read
This article is part of our “One metal a month” series, in which we explore one strategic metal at a time and its role in the energy transition and global supply chains. These materials are increasingly shaping industrial competitiveness and geopolitics, while raising urgent questions about security of supply, recycling, environmental impact and price volatility. This is the May edition of the series.
Cobalt has a name with a more eccentric origin than most metals. It comes from "kobold", the goblins of German folklore, who 16th-century Saxon miners believed they were spoiling the copper or silver they were originally looking for. The ore looked promising, sickened the miners, and yielded nothing of value at the time. The obvious culprit: goblins.
It took until 1735 for Swedish chemist Georg Brandt to isolate the metal and prove it was a new element, making cobalt the first metal in history with a known discoverer. Brandt also showed that the deep blue color long prized in glass and ceramics, from Egyptian pottery and Chinese porcelain to Venetian Murano glass, came from cobalt itself and not from the bismuth it was usually found alongside.
In plain terms, it helps batteries last longer and not catch fire.
Today, cobalt is far more than a pigment. It is hard, corrosion-resistant, magnetic, stable at high temperatures, and an excellent catalyst. These properties make it valuable in superalloys for jet engines, hard metals, magnets, medical radiotherapy, and increasingly batteries. It is recognized as a critical raw material in the EU, the US and most other industrialized economies
Batteries are now cobalt’s dominant end use. Around 70% of global demand goes into lithium-ion batteries, with electric vehicles alone accounting for roughly 43%. In cathodes, cobalt boosts energy density, extends cycle life and improves thermal stability. In plain terms, it helps batteries last longer and not catch fire. Total demand passed 200,000 tonnes for the first time in 2024, growing 14% year-on-year, and the Cobalt Institute expects it to roughly double by the early 2030s, shifting the market into deficit.
Cobalt's value chain however is one of the most controversial in the metals world. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) holds about 55% of global reserves and produced 76% of mined cobalt in 2024. Most of it is extracted as a by-product of copper mining; only two mines worldwide treat cobalt as their primary product. A small but visible share of DRC output, around 2%, comes from artisanal and small-scale mining, where child labor and human rights violations remain a serious and well-documented concern.
Refining is even more concentrated. China dominates this stage of the value chain, refining around 75% of the world’s cobalt, with the rest split between Finland, Belgium, Canada, Norway and Japan. Indonesia is the fastest-growing miner, lifting output from 2,700 tonnes in 2021 to 28,000 in 2024 thanks to a wave of Chinese-backed nickel-cobalt projects.
Cobalt's value chain is one of the most controversial in the metals world.
Two forces are now reshaping the picture. Cobalt-free chemistries, particularly lithium iron phosphate (LFP), have taken significant market share in China, though European and North American EVs still rely on cobalt-containing batteries for around 90% of sales. And recycling is scaling up: cobalt is infinitely recyclable, modern processes recover more than 95% of it from spent batteries, and recycled material could supply over 20% of demand by 2030.
From a goblin's curse to a cornerstone of the energy transition, cobalt has come a long way. Its importance nowadays is especially highlighted by the existence of the Cobalt Institute and the annual Cobalt Summit. This year it was held in Madrid, and various topics were addressed, such as cobalt’s circularity, responsible governance in the DRC, or China’s place in cobalt’s value chain.
Cobalt now sits at the center of a growing contradiction. Battery manufacturers are working to reduce their reliance on it, yet the rapid expansion of the EV market continues to drive demand higher. How that tension plays out, and whether the industry can build a cleaner, more responsible value chain in the process, will reveal much about the credibility of the world’s commitment to a sustainable energy transition.
Authored by Diane Naffah (Terraquota), reviewed by Irina Chèvre (Terraquota)
28th May 2026
