Cobalt material flow in the United States from 1995 to 2015

Abstract

As a key enabling material for automotive battery, cobalt has attracted increasing governmental and academic attention in recent years, because understanding its supply and demand balance and material flow is crucial for the green transition of transportation in major countries around the world. In order to reveal the change of regional cobalt material flow and identify its supply pattern, we deployed a material flow analysis (MFA) methodology that considers international trade of all cobalt containing products through the entire life cycle for a case of the United States from 1995 to 2015. We found that: (1) From a flow perspective, the mining and refining phase has shifted from domestic supply to imports in the United States, primary production has decreased gradually, and as more cobalt containing products reach their end of life, secondary production has increased. The losses from manufacturing, particularly for superalloys and other end-uses, are significant and deserve further investigation. As apparent consumption of batteries increases, their end-of-life waste flows have gradually replaced those from superalloys and other end- uses. (2) From a stock perspective, the dominant sectors have changed from superalloys and other end-uses to both superalloys and batteries. (3) For both stocks and flows, automotive batteries have shown an increase of 15% during 2011 to 2015, which should be paid special attention to in the future. (4) From a supply pattern point of view, the top three commodities for net import of the United States are raw materials, consumer electronics batteries, and automotive batteries. The dominant source of raw materials supply has shifted from Europe (80%) to Asia (35%), supplemented by the Americas (27%) and Europe (22%). Battery supply is further concentrated in Asia, with the share of imported automotive batteries and consumer electronics batteries rising from 82% and 57% respectively in 1995, to 96% and 91% respectively in 2015. By 2015, China had become the largest supplier for consumer electronics batteries (74% in total) and raw cobalt materials (31% in total), and the second largest supplier for automotive batteries (36% in total) for the United States. In the context of expected increasing trade conflicts between China and the United States, it will be important to better understand the role of“US-China”decoupling in securing the world, China and the United States cobalt supply and material flows. Our characterization of the past cobalt material flows can help reveal the dynamics of U.S. cobalt value chain and inform China’s critical raw materials regulatory framework and policymaking.