{"id":17282,"date":"2026-02-24T13:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T13:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/17282\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T13:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T13:08:13","slug":"glencore-tipped-to-buy-115m-of-cobalt-from-industry-veteran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/17282\/","title":{"rendered":"Glencore tipped to buy $115m of cobalt from industry veteran"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Pratima Desai<\/p>\n

London \u2014 Glencore has agreed to buy nearly 2,000 tonnes of cobalt worth almost $115m at current prices from industry veteran Rami Weisfisch in a landmark deal, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.<\/p>\n

The material, which is vital for defence and military equipment, is expected to be shipped to the US for inclusion in its planned stockpile, the two sources said.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump\u2019s administration is seeking to secure critical materials including cobalt to reduce its reliance on China, the dominant global supplier and processor of metals and minerals needed for strategic industries.<\/p>\n

China has leveraged its control to ban exports of critical minerals, introducing quotas and new regulations.<\/p>\n

London-listed miner Glencore agreed at the end of last year to buy the cobalt from Weisfisch over 12 months in 2026 using a formula tied to prices assessed by price reporting agency. Fastmarkets, the sources said.<\/p>\n

Weisfisch and Glencore declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Read: Glencore\u2019s return to shareholders over past five years tops R432bn<\/a><\/p>\n

The deal marks the end of Weisfisch\u2019s half-a-century involvement in the cobalt market, the sources said. The cobalt acquired by Weisfisch in 2015 is stored in Europe and the US.<\/p>\n

The sources expect Glencore to sell the cobalt to the US under Project Vault, an initiative to stockpile critical minerals backed by $10bn in seed funding from the US Export-Import Bank and $2bn in private funding.<\/p>\n

CEO Gary Nagle said at a briefing last week that Glencore would participate in the project.<\/p>\n

The agreement between Weisfisch and Switzerland-based Glencore came after the US Defence Logistics Agency (DLA) cancelled a tender to purchase cobalt in October last year. The tender originally announced on August 19 went through several amendments before it was withdrawn.<\/p>\n

The DLA said last year it still intended to purchase cobalt for the national defence stockpile, but that it was reassessing its strategy and had no target date for reissuing the tender.<\/p>\n

It was initially looking for offers from only three companies: Vale\u2019s Port Colborne and Long Harbour plants in Canada, Japan\u2019s Sumitomo Metal Mining and Glencore\u2019s Nikkelverk operation in Norway.<\/p>\n

Expectations of stronger cobalt demand, combined with tight supplies created by top producer the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) suspending exports from the end of February to mid-October when it imposed quotas, have propelled prices higher.<\/p>\n

At $26 a pound or $57,320 a tonne, they are 160% above levels seen in February 2025.<\/p>\n

DRC cobalt is a byproduct of copper production and comes in the form of hydroxide, which is easily turned into cobalt sulphate used to make lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and mobile devices.<\/p>\n

Worst affected by the DRC\u2019s export ban and quotas is China, the world\u2019s biggest cobalt processor, where consumers have been scrambling to secure supplies. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Pratima Desai London \u2014 Glencore has agreed to buy nearly 2,000 tonnes of cobalt worth almost $115m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[351,10861,11960,2135,18,10862,187,8739,132,11968,11967,11962,11935,11959,11961,11966,714,11964,11963,11965],"class_list":{"0":"post-17282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glencore","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-cobalt","10":"tag-cobalt-price-increase","11":"tag-critical-minerals","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-drc","14":"tag-electric-vehicles","15":"tag-gary-nagle","16":"tag-glencore","17":"tag-lithium-ion-batteries","18":"tag-nikkelverk","19":"tag-project-vault","20":"tag-rami-weisfisch","21":"tag-stockpile","22":"tag-strategic-industries","23":"tag-sumitomo-metal-mining","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-us-defence-logistics-agency","26":"tag-us-export-import-bank","27":"tag-vale"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}