Cobalt Prices Soar After Glencore Announces Shutdown of Key Mine

Rare earth metals might have become a hot topic due to the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, but industry experts have been paying close attention to the sector for a while now and one closely watched metal is cobalt. A key component in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, cobalt has seen its price fall by more than 40% this year.

In response, many of the world's leading miners have no other choice than to shut down key cobalt mining facilities, putting the global supply in jeopardy. That's exactly what happened with Glencore (OTC: GLNCY), an international mining giant based out of Switzerland with a market cap of $36.7 billion. Earlier in August, the company announced it was mothballing one of the world's top cobalt and copper mines located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, known as the Mutanda mine.

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Source Fool.com