The country that produces the most cobalt
The Democratic Republic of Congo is the country that produces the most cobalt in the world, and it is not close. Cobalt is a metal used to make batteries for electric cars and phones. The country mined 75% of all cobalt mined worldwide in 2024, according to the United States Geological Survey, the government agency that tracks mineral production. That is more than 6 times as much as the next largest producer, Indonesia, which mined 12% of the world total the same year, up from 19,000 metric tons in 2023 to 35,000 metric tons in 2024. Every other cobalt mining country combined produced the remaining 13%, a MAOWCE calculation built from those 2 government figures. Mining alone made up 40.0% of national economic output in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2024 and 95% of the value of everything the country exported, the same government survey shows, so a shock to cobalt prices is a shock to the entire country economy, not just to one industry inside it.
Congo Kinshasa and Indonesia are the shares the United States Geological Survey states for 2024. The rest of world figure is a MAOWCE calculation, 100 minus those 2 stated shares.
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| Congo Kinshasa | 75 |
| Indonesia | 12 |
| Rest of world | 13 |
A second chokepoint at the refinery
Mining cobalt out of the ground is only the first step. Refining, the process that turns raw ore into pure metal ready to use, happens almost entirely somewhere else. China refined 79% of all cobalt refined worldwide in 2025, according to the Cobalt Institute, a trade group representing cobalt producers and users. The International Energy Agency, the intergovernmental group that tracks energy trends, finds that refining concentration for critical minerals broadly is rising, not easing. The average share held by the top 3 refining countries across the minerals the agency studied climbed from around 82% in 2020 to around 86% in 2024, and the agency projects China alone will refine more than 60% of world lithium and cobalt combined by 2035. Under a supply disruption scenario the agency modeled, if the single largest supplier of a mineral were removed, the remaining suppliers of cobalt could still cover only 65% of remaining demand. Cobalt is concentrated twice, once at the mine and again at the refinery, and the 2 chokepoints sit in 2 different countries.
These 3 figures cover 2 different stages of the supply chain, not 1. The China figure is a share of world refining. The Congo Kinshasa and Indonesia figures are shares of world mining.
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| China, share of refining | 79 |
| Congo Kinshasa, share of mining | 73 |
| Indonesia, share of mining | 14 |
Chinese companies inside Congo mines
The mining chokepoint is not simply a Congo story either. Chinese companies now own or hold a stake in 15 of the largest copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to an analysis by Gracelin Baskaran, who directs the critical minerals security program at a Washington policy institute.
China now owns or holds stakes in 15 of the largest copper and cobalt mines in the DRC.
Gracelin Baskaran, director of the critical minerals security program at a Washington policy institute. Source 5.
That reach includes Tenke Fungurume, the single largest cobalt mine on Earth, which is 80% owned by the Chinese company CMOC. Chinese state owned banks financed most of the purchase, 2.48 billion dollars of the 2.68 billion dollars in total credit behind it. The Democratic Republic of Congo hosts 4 of the 5 largest cobalt mines in the world outright. A reader who learns that one country mines almost everything has not yet learned that a second country then refines almost everything too, sometimes through companies from that same second country that also operate the mines inside Congo itself. Anyone weighing where a battery supply chain could break has to watch both chokepoints, not just the one that gets mentioned first.