A four-month cobalt shipment ban and a copper price near US$10,000 pulled the external account in two directions.

By Kanisa Magazine · March 2025

Congo switched off its cobalt exports on 22 February 2025, and within four weeks the price of the metal in London had risen about a quarter. The central bank’s reserves, meanwhile, ended the same four weeks at US$6,248 million, above where they began the year. The external account behind Congo’s commodity economy moved on two clocks at once in March: a policy clock that stopped shipments, and a market clock that repriced everything that stayed.

The question for a business reader is how much of the country’s dollar income depends on cobalt volumes and how much on cobalt and copper prices. March was the first month in which the two pulled in different directions.

The ban and the price

A shipment stop in the world’s largest producer repriced the metal within days.

The authority that regulates strategic minerals markets, ARECOMS, suspended cobalt exports for four months from 22 February, with a review after three. Its president, Patrick Luabeya, said the aim was to relieve oversupply, to encourage more processing inside Congo and to build a transparent pricing mechanism, according to Bloomberg’s report of 24 February. The BCC’s price table shows what followed. London cathode was US$21,171 a tonne on 28 February, US$23,251 on 10 March and US$26,578 from 17 March, a rise of about 26 per cent in three weeks, from a level close to the nine-year low.

Physical buyers moved first. By 10 March, a wire report carried by Kitco said, standard-grade cobalt in Rotterdam had reached US$12.25 a pound on 7 March, up from US$10.80 on 4 March, and Eurasian Resources Group had declared force majeure on deliveries from its Metalkol operation, which accounts for about 9 per cent of Congo’s output.

What the reserves line shows

Reserves swung by more than US$300 million in two days and then recovered.

The BCC’s weekly digest lists reserves daily. They stood at US$6,132 million on 31 December, US$6,337 million on 31 January and a peak of US$6,382 million on 20 February. The next trading day they were US$5,987 million. On 3 March they were US$6,307 million, two days later US$6,002 million, and by 21 March US$6,248 million, which the digest rounds to ten weeks of import cover.

The digest does not explain the movements and nor should an observer. A line that can lose US$300 million in 48 hours and regain it within two weeks reflects the timing of large payments in and out, not a trend. The sensible reading is that reserves have settled in a band of roughly US$6.0 to 6.4 billion, which is wide enough that any single day tells a reader little.

Volume, price and the copper cushion

Copper at US$10,000 a tonne makes up for some of the cobalt tonnes held back.

The BCC reports 2024 cobalt output of 198,777 tonnes, up from 140,121 tonnes in 2023, and copper of 3.10 million tonnes against 2.84 million. Cobalt supply therefore grew by about 42 per cent in a year, the surplus the ban set out to remove. Stopping exports for four months removes volume now, and the price gain only helps the producers, and the state revenue linked to them, once shipments resume and the metal already stockpiled is sold at the higher level.

Copper is the buffer. London copper reached US$10,037.50 on 21 March, 7 per cent above its end-February price of US$9,364.90 and 14 per cent above end-December. Gold, in which the BCC records 27.9 tonnes of 2024 output, closed at US$3,023.20 an ounce, 14.5 per cent above its level at the end of 2024. Brent, at US$71.01, was lower. A country with a 10-week import cover and a copper price above US$10,000 is exposed to cobalt timing rather than to a funding gap.

What importers and investors should do

Plan around the review date in late May and treat the reserve line as a band, not a trend.

For importers, the reserve band suggests the franc is not about to be forced to adjust because of one commodity. For mining suppliers and logistics firms, the review that ARECOMS promised for roughly three months after 22 February is the date that matters: quotas, if they come, will set how many tonnes move and when. A contractor paid per tonne shipped should model a zero-volume scenario until then. A bank lending against cobalt cargoes should ask for the export authorisation, not only the warehouse receipt.