Cobalt Exploration

Exploration

Cobalt has become a popular exploration target due to the need for new sources of this key battery raw material. The International energy agency predicts that global cobalt demand will increase from 160 000 tonnes in 2021 up to 250 000 tonnes of cobalt per year in 2030 (IEA 2022). Exploration projects are widely distributed across the globe, with rapid developments of several new projects especially in Indonesia (Cobalt Institute 2023).

Figure 1: Global map of cobalt mines, deposits and occurrences, with approximate locations indicated. The cobalt endowment of each deposit shown exceeds 0.05 million tonnes of cobalt metal, with the exception of some exploration projects in Europe (see Table 3 for details). Other deposit types include: black shale-hosted Ni-Cu-Zn-Co; Fe-Cu-Co skarn and replacement deposits; IOCG; metasedimentary rock-hosted Co-Cu-Au; MVT sulfide deposits; cobalt-rich vein deposits; VMS deposits. Note: the approximate location of seafloor deposits is shown by a number only, without an accompanying symbol. Modified after Petavratzi et al. (2019). British Geological Survey.

There are several different deposit types that can contain and extract cobalt. Magmatic Ni-Cu-Co-(±PGE) sulfide, stratiform sediment-hosted Cu-Co, and Ni-Co laterite deposits account for about 85 % of terrestrial global cobalt resources (Mudd et al. 2018). It is usually a by-product to these deposits, while the main commodities are chiefly copper or nickel. Other target commodities include gold, platinum-group elements, silver. Magmatic Ni Cu deposits are an important source of nickel with nearly 40% of world production in 2017 and major deposits are located in Russia, Canada and Australia. Stratiform sediment-hosted Cu-Co are the main source for cobalt, mainly extracted from the Central African Copperbelt in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zambia. Large deposits of this type also occur in Europe (Kupferschiefer) and Russia (Udokan Basin), but cobalt concentrations are much lower and copper is the main commodity.

Table 1: Key features of cobalt-bearing deposit types. *based on 113 deposits. Source: Horn et al. (2021).

Global cobalt reserves

Cobalt reserve data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) indicate a total of 8.3 million tonnes of cobalt, where the almost 50% is situated in the DRC in sediment-hosted Cu-Co deposits. Australia also contains a significant proportion of cobalt reserves in magmatic Ni-Cu as well as Ni-Co laterite deposits and substantial investments into new exploration projects containing cobalt. Indonesia currently holds the third-largest reserves with many new Ni-Co laterite deposits being developed in the last years, that plan to produce cobalt as a by-product.

Figure 2. Global distribution of cobalt reserves expressed as tonnes of cobalt. Diagram shows global distribution of cobalt reserves, with RoW (rest of world) comprising countries with reserves of less than 200 Kt, including Morocco, Papua New Guinea, Turkey, USA, Madagascar and China. Data source: USGS (2023).

Cobalt Exploration

Exploration

Global cobalt reserves

Further Reading