After nearly a year of silence, cobalt shipments are moving again out of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The pause, which stretched across ten months, was never meant to be permanent. It was a deliberate freeze — a pressure move by a country tired of watching its most valuable resource dictate prices everywhere except at home.
Introduced early this year, the export shutdown was framed as a short-term intervention. What began as a four-month experiment quietly evolved into a longer standoff between Kinshasa and global markets drowning in excess supply. Prices were falling, revenues were shrinking, and Congo decided to step out of the flow entirely.
That pause is now over.
Speaking to journalists, Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba confirmed that cobalt has once again started leaving the country. The message was blunt: Congo is back in the market — but not on the same terms as before.
Few countries hold leverage like the DRC does. The nation dominates global cobalt output to an extent unmatched by any other producer, accounting for well over two-thirds of the world’s supply last year. Yet dominance did not translate into control. Prices slid anyway, and state income followed them down.
According to Fwamba, that imbalance became unacceptable.
He argued that exporting a strategic metal at scale while remaining powerless over its valuation made no economic sense. The suspension, he said, was about reclaiming authority — not only over shipments, but over how Congo’s resources are priced globally.
The government believes the gamble paid off. During the months when cobalt exports were locked down, prices more than doubled, climbing from the low twenty-thousand-dollar range per metric ton to figures exceeding fifty thousand.
Behind the scenes, the country’s cobalt story remains tightly linked to foreign operators. Some of the world’s largest mining complexes on Congolese soil are run by Chinese firms, whose aggressive extraction has long shaped supply dynamics and contributed to global oversaturation.
Most cobalt production continues to come from the mineral-rich southeast, a region central to Congo’s economic ambitions. Unlike the eastern provinces torn apart by ongoing conflict, these mining zones have remained relatively insulated from armed instability — for now.
With exports restarted, Congo is re-entering the global supply chain having tested its leverage. Whether this reset changes long-term pricing power remains to be seen. But the signal is clear: the country no longer wants to be just the source — it wants a say.
