Chronic. The cobalt of the records ! Nothing seems to stop the curve price of blue metal, as irresistibly attracted by the blue skies. Cobalt blue on azure blue, a color chart trend on the market of raw materials. The heart of the speculators never ceases to fight for the cobalt. Its rarity fuels the lust and the course ignites.
After appreciating nearly 30 % in 2016, it jumped to 70 % in 2017. And since the beginning of the year, it continues to rise. Friday 17 march, it was trading at 87 us $ 125 per tonne to the London stock Exchange.
“Substances strategic ”
The new drc mining code has fanned the flame. The president of the democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Joseph Kabila has promulgated Friday 9 march. He intends to multiply by five the tax on the cobalt from 2 % to 10 %. For this royalty rate comes into force, remains a last prior. As the prime minister of the DRC classifies the ore among the ” substances strategic “.
Officially, Mr. Kabila justifies this decision by the desire to increase the fiscal resources of a State, which is sorely lacking, in spite of its mineral wealth. A poor country sitting on a bunch of cobalt, copper, coltan and diamonds.
The prospect of a presidential election in December is perhaps not totally foreign to this sudden awareness. Even if according to the Constitution, Mr. Kabila, after seventeen years in power, cannot represent himself, knowing that his mandate expired in December 2016…
The mining groups, them, make gray mine. And for good reason. Two-thirds of the cobalt world are extracted from the sub-soil in congo. Until the end, they have conducted intense lobbying to avoid going to the fund. Without apparent success. Even if the congolese president has promised in extremis a “consultation” on the application of…