Cobalt miners in Congo (DRC) will be allowed to carry over their 2025 export quotas into the first quarter of 2026 after administrative delays prevented shipments, the country’s mining regulator said.
“The quotas duly notified to operators for the year 2025 shall remain valid until March 31,” the Authority for the Regulation and Control of Strategic Mineral Substances’ Markets (ARECOMS) said in a statement dated December 31. Companies now have until the end of March to ship volumes initially scheduled for export between mid-October and the end of last year.
ARECOMS had indicated earlier that miners would not lose their allocations despite being unable to move cargoes across the border, as new procedures took longer than expected to become operational.
Since February 2025, the Congolese government has imposed strict controls on cobalt exports from the world’s top producer, which accounts for about three quarters of global supply of the metal used in electric-vehicle batteries as well as the aerospace and defence industries. Exports were blocked entirely for nearly eight months before a quota system was introduced.
Prices have more than doubled
In September, the regulator said miners would be allowed to ship just over 18,000 tonnes of cobalt during the remainder of 2025, and up to 96,600 tonnes per year in 2026 and 2027, volumes amounting to less than half of national output in 2024.
Companies had expected shipments to resume in mid-October. China’s CMOC Group, the world’s largest cobalt producer with two mines in the DRC, has been among the most affected by the measures, which authorities say were designed to curb oversupply and support prices.
Since Congo first suspended exports, when prices were at historically low levels, benchmark cobalt prices have more than doubled. Cobalt hydroxide, the main product exported from the DRC, has risen roughly fourfold.
Source: Bloomberg
