新能源继续狂奔，“钴”奶奶为何熄火 | 经济学人财经

Finance & economics | Cornucobalt

财经 | 充足的钴

英文部分选自经济学人20230218财经版块

Finance & economics | Cornucobalt

财经 | 充足的钴

Cobalt, a crucial battery material, is suddenly superabundant

电池材料钴突然变得过剩 是上帝打开了天窗？

How an obstacle to the energy transition disappeared

能源转型的壁垒是怎样突然消失的？

注释：

Cornucobalt由cornucopia丰饶角一次化用而来，此处用于表达钴不再供不应求。

Dela wa Monga, an artisanal miner, holds a cobalt stone at the Shabara artisanal mine near Kolwezi on October 12, 2022. - Some 20,000 people work at Shabara, in shifts of 5,000 at a time. Congo produced 72 percent of the world’s cobalt last year, according to Darton Commodities. And demand for the metal is exploding due to its use in the rechargeable batteries that power mobile phones and electric cars. But the country’s poorly regulated artisanal mines, which produce a small but not-negligeable percentage of its total output, have tarnished the image of Congolese cobalt.

2022年10月12日，在科卢韦齐附近的沙巴拉矿山，手工矿工Dela wa Monga拿着一块钴石。沙巴拉矿山大约有2万名工人，四班倒，每班5000人。达顿大宗商品交易公司（Darton Commodities）的数据显示，刚果（金）去年的钴产量为全球的72%。由于手机和电动汽车充电电池要用到钴，钴的需求量正在激增。然而，刚果手工矿山监管不力，玷污了刚果钴的声誉（手工矿山产量不大，但也不容忽视）。

相关阅读

刚果金钴矿采矿者，靠手工采矿维持生计

https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/579817825

Just a year ago a global crunch in one metal looked likely to single-handedly derail the energy transition. Not only was cobalt, a crucial battery material, being dug up far too slowly to meet soaring demand, but the lion’s share of known reserves sat in Congo, a country rife with instability, corruption and child labour. Fast forward to today and the price of the blue metal, which had more than doubled between summer 2021 and spring 2022, to $82,000 a tonne, has collapsed to $35,000, not far from historic lows.

就在一年前，全球范围内，钴供应短缺，这种金属当时似乎能以一己之力破坏能源转型的进程。钴的开采速度过慢，供不应求，不仅如此，已知大部分储量还位于刚果——一个动荡不安、腐败盛行、童工现象猖獗的国家。2021年夏季至2022年春季，钴价增加了一倍多，达到每吨8.2万美元，而如今，钴价已暴跌至每吨3.5万美元，比历史最低价高不了多少了。

注释：

The lion's share: the largest part or most of something

The story is partly one of reduced demand. Most cobalt goes into the battery packs which power smartphones, tablets and laptops. Appetite for these, already strong in the 2010s, exploded during the covid-19 pandemic. It has since waned as people spend less time staring at their screens: as demand for consumer electronics fell, so did that for cobalt. Even a boom in electric vehicles has not been sufficient to counteract this, since manufacturers have done their best to reduce use of the formerly super-expensive metal.

钴价下跌的部分原因是需求减少。大部分钴都用在智能手机、平板电脑、笔记本电脑的电池组中。人们对电子设备的需求在2010年代就已经很强烈，疫情期间更是爆发性增长。但现在人们盯着屏幕的时间相对变短，对电子产品需求逐渐减弱，生产商对钴的需求由此下降。即便电动汽车兴起也不足弥补减少的需求，因为制造商已竭尽全力减少使用这种一度超级昂贵的金属。

注释：

wane: If something wanes, it becomes gradually weaker or less, often so that it eventually disappears. 减弱; 减少

At the same time supply is rising, and fast. Susan Zou of Rystad Energy, a consultancy, forecasts that Congolese production will jump by 38% this year, to 180,000 tonnes. Most striking is a surge in Indonesian exports, which are projected to hit 18,000 tonnes this year, up from virtually none a few years ago. The world could find itself swimming in cobalt.

与此同时，供给也在飞速增长。咨询公司里斯塔德能源（Rystad Energy）的邹苏珊（Susan Zou）预测，刚果今年钴产量将提高38%，达到18万吨。最引人注目的莫过于来自印尼的钴出口量激增，预计今年将达到1.8万吨，而几年前几乎为零。全世界将发现钴唾手可得，仿佛遨游于钴的海洋。

注释：

Rystad Energy: 总部位于挪威的一家独立能源研究机构。Rystad Energy is an independent energy research and business intelligence company headquartered in Oslo, Norway. It is the biggest independent energy consultancy in Norway, and a world-leading analysis company for the oil and gas industry.

In other markets low prices would force producers to shut mines. Not for cobalt. The price has already fallen below many miners’ break-even point. Yet Glencore, the world’s biggest, said on February 15th that it may keep output nearly unchanged this year, having cranked it up in 2022; China Moly, a rival, is about to open a new facility that may yield 30,000 tonnes a year (equivalent to 16% of the world’s output in 2022). Big firms can tolerate low prices because cobalt is a by-product of the extraction of copper and nickel, both of which remain pricey. Electric-vehicle makers the world over are courting Indonesia for nickel, kick-starting projects that will also yield cobalt. China Moly’s monster mine in Congo will produce three times as much copper as it will the blue metal.

在其他矿物市场，低价会迫使生产商关闭矿山，钴市场则不然。钴价已跌破许多矿企的盈亏平衡点。不过，2月15日，矿企巨头嘉能可（Glencore）称，继2022年增产后，今年产出可能会大致保持不变；其竞争对手洛阳钼业（China Moly）即将开设一个年产3万吨钴的新厂（相当于2022年全球产量的16%）。大公司可以忍受低价，因为钴是提炼铜和镍的副产品，而铜和镍依然昂贵。世界各地的电动汽车生产商正向印尼采购镍，后者随之启动的镍矿项目同样也能产钴。洛阳钼业位于刚果（金）的巨矿，其铜产量将是钴的三倍。

Prices may still rise a bit this year, as speculators seek to snap up bargains. Beyond 2025, however, another dampener looms. By this time, the first wave of electric-vehicle batteries, which typically last up to eight years, will begin to be recycled, reducing the need for new supply. No matter how fast the energy transition speeds up, the blue gold is unlikely to act as a brake.

投机者不会错过这一低价入手的良机，所以今年钴价可能仍会略微上涨。但钴的生产商很快就要被泼冷水了，因为电动汽车电池使用寿命通常为8年，等到2025年第一波电池被回收后，对新开采的钴的需求就会降低。无论能源转型的“加速度”有多大，钴都不大可能起到“制动”作用。   

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