Cobalt Supply Concentration and the EV-Electronics Demand Split

Cobalt entered 2025 at a nine-year price low, then reversed sharply after the DRC suspended exports and replaced the ban with a quota capping monthly shipments well below 2024 run-rates. This report establishes the supply arithmetic behind the 2026 deficit, traces how Indonesian by-product growth partially offsets the DRC curtailment without closing the gap, and quantifies China's roughly 78% share of refined output as the single largest amplifier of supply-chain risk. On demand, lithium-iron-phosphate adoption above half of global EV deployments has suppressed cobalt intensity per vehicle, while Western EV models, consumer electronics, and data-center backup batteries hold cobalt-rich chemistries. The interaction of constrained primary supply, concentrated refining, and diverging chemistry sets the price path through 2027.