亿万富翁埃隆·马斯克称关键矿产为“新石油”，他抱怨其价格“疯狂”。白宫试图通过补贴吸引能增加供应的人士以应对这种情况。欧洲政治领袖也在忙于寻找对策，并承诺为项目提供财政支持。
几个月前，钴、锂等少数金属的前景充满不确定性和忧虑，因为人们担忧可能出现短缺，这些金属对于将化石燃料转变为清洁能源所需的电池至关重要，而此时它们的价格飙升。但如今情形已大有改观。中国成功地打破了关键矿产市场的格局。
从2022年至2023年的高点开始，钴和锂价格大幅下滑，超过75%的跌幅。中国矿商的产量提升至难以想象的水平，这一增长超越了预期。过去一直被认为可能会面临长期短缺风险的钴现在变得非常充裕，其价格已经接近近二十年来的最低点。
“关键矿产”这个标签不再让人担忧供应不足。然而需要注意的是，低价格并不保证供应安全。如今，中国不仅在钴和锂的生产中占据主导地位，而且还极大地影响了电动汽车和其他电子设备所依赖的核心电池产业。
更为重要的是，当前的价格下滑使得非中国矿商难以盈利，这减少了西方投资者建立自给自足供给链的动力。价格崩溃是备受瞩目的大宗商品叙事之一受到打击——能源转换到更清洁的可再生能源中将导致金属价格持续攀升——的真实情况与预期大相径庭。
现实远比预想的复杂得多。显然，在向清洁能源转型的过程中，世界对特定矿物的需求将会大幅增加，因为我们需要数百万高能效电池。大多数金属需求的增长每年约为2%到3%，而钴和锂的消费增长却高达10%至20%。从需求角度来看，关键矿产是商品行业中令人羡慕的对象。
然而供应也迅速膨胀，增长率极高。钴就是一个典型例子。长期以来，伦敦上市的大宗商品巨头嘉能可一直主导市场。但很快，中国企业纷纷效仿进入刚果民主共和国——这个世界最大的储量所在地，并在短时间内将产量提高到行业认为可能的极限水平之外。
全球钴市年产量已达到约23万吨，CMOC集团今年的生产量超过10万吨，而5年前仅为1.5万吨。通过快速扩张其位于刚果民主共和国南部的Tenke Fungurume和Kisanfu矿场，中国矿业巨头CMOC已成为世界上最大的钴生产商，超越了嘉能可。
显然，产量激增超出了需求，导致库存积压无处不在。即使是最乐观的人也认为要清除过剩需要18到24个月的时间。更为审慎的观察者则估计可能需要5年或更长时间。
为什么市场需要这么长的时间才能重新平衡呢？矿产价格在低谷时不应该不是正常的周期波动吗？钴的问题在于它并不是典型的大宗商品。几乎没人专门开采钴；事实上，全球98%的产出是铜和镍矿业过程中的副产品。因此真正重要的是钴的价格，而非真正的大宗商品——铜和镍的价格。两者都维持着高价位水平，矿商完全有动力继续开采。因此，低价格并未解决钴过剩的问题。
这就是导致钴价暴跌的原因。从最高点每千克超过80美元跌至最近的25美元附近，这一价格调整接近过去二十年最低点。按通胀调整后计算，钴目前可能是半个世纪以来最便宜的时候。钴市场重新平衡的最佳机会是耐心等待需求与突然增加的供给相匹配。
除了中国，电动车销量今年在除该国以外的所有地方均表现平淡，从而降低了对电池的需求。
不过，低大宗商品价格确实有助于提振需求。过去二十年中的阶段性价格上涨促成了巨大的工程努力以减少钴的使用量。投入到研发的资金创建了新的电池化学技术，如NMC 811，其减少了电池正极中的钴含量至仅10%，低于早期称为NMC 622的版本中20%的比例，甚至是NMC 523版本中的30%。
在当前钴价下，研发支出被用于其他领域，并未试图削减大宗商品使用量。事实上，一些行业领袖告诉我，他们看到了某些电池应用中钴含量恢复增长的迹象。
锂市场的情况与钴类似。中国公司迅速增加供应，超过了市场需求，导致金属价格大幅度下降。不仅开采了更多的锂矿石，中国企业还非常擅长回收旧电池，增加了额外的供给层。这导致锂市崩盘。基准锂价降至每吨约1.1万美元，从2023年初的最高点几乎7万美元暴跌。
对于关键矿物来说，中国制造了一个泡沫——其国内对电池的需求强劲，并且供应链主导地位如此之大，以至于许多其他国家都开始囤积钴和锂以应对来自美国和欧洲政策制定者的警戒。在需求短期内超过供应之后的一段时间内形势似乎得到缓解。
但是，中国所做的，它也正在消解。加大了供给的力度并取得成果后，市场迎来了猛烈崩溃。然而，不能被当前低价格所误导；尽管它们短时间内未必能恢复至原先水平，但中国对关键矿产绝对主导地位构成了对未来生产清洁能源所需电池的一个明确且持久的风险。
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新闻来源：www.bloomberg.com
原文地址：Energy Transition: China Has Broken the ‘Critical Minerals’ Market
新闻日期：2024-09-30
原文摘要：
Billionaire Elon Musk called them the “new oil,” complaining about their “insane” cost. The White House dangled subsidies to whoever could boost supply. European politicians scrambled for a response, also promising financial support for projects. Only a few months ago, the prospect of shortages of elements including cobalt, lithium and a few other metals stoked apprehension as prices of the elements needed to make the batteries crucial for the energy transition climbed. Not anymore. China has broken the market for these so-called critical minerals.From their most recent peak in 2022-2023, prices of cobalt and lithium have plunged more than 75% after Chinese miners boosted production to levels that were previously unimaginable. Cobalt, long considered a commodity at risk of perennial shortages, is now so abundant that its price is hovering near a 20-year low.The critical minerals moniker no longer evokes concern about shortfalls. But be careful: Low prices are no guarantee of security of supply. More than ever, China dominates production of cobalt and lithium, reinforcing its enormous influence on the batteries essential for electric vehicles and other gadgets. Worse, prices have fallen so low that non-Chinese miners would struggle to make a profit, reducing the incentive for Western investors to build their own sources. The price crash is another strike against one of the most hyped commodity narratives — that the energy transition to cleaner electricity from fossil fuels makes sky-high metals prices inevitable.The reality is far more complex. Clearly, the energy transition means a lot more demand for particular commodities as the world is going to need millions of new high-performance batteries. While most metals contend with annual demand growth of 2% to 3%, cobalt and lithium have enjoyed consumption growth of 10% to 20% per year. From the demand side, critical minerals are the envy of the commodities industry. Supply, though, has also expanded at breakneck speeds.Cobalt is paradigmatic. For many years, Glencore Plc., the London-listed commodity giant, dominated the market. But Chinese companies soon followed it into the Democratic Republic of Congo, home of the world’s largest reserves. There, a Chinese company known today as CMOC Group Ltd. has boosted output beyond what many in the industry thought was possible in such a short timeframe.Annual output in the global cobalt market has reached about 230,000 metric tons, as CMOC has expanded its production to more than 100,000 tons this year from about 15,000 tons five years ago. CMOC has rapidly expanded its massive Tenke Fungurume and Kisanfu mines in southern Democratic Republic of Congo. In the process, the Chinese mining giant, which counts battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. as one of its shareholders, has become the world’s top cobalt miner, outpacing Glencore.Unsurprisingly, the production shock has overwhelmed demand, prompting inventories to accumulate everywhere. Even the most optimistic think it would take between 18 to 24 months to clear the surplus. More circumspect observers talk about five years or even longer.Why would it take so long to rebalance the market? Shouldn’t production respond quickly to low prices, as in a typical boom-bust commodity cycle? The problem is that cobalt isn’t your typical commodity. Virtually no one digs solely for cobalt; instead, about 98% of the world’s output is a byproduct of copper and nickel mining. Hence, the price that really matters isn’t what cobalt fetches, but rather what copper and nickel do. And both command high enough prices that miners have every incentive to keep digging. Thus, low prices aren’t the cure for cobalt overproduction. The result has been the collapse in cobalt prices. From the most recent peak of more than $80 per kilogram in mid-2022, it has fallen to about$25 recently, hovering near its lowest level in two decades. In real terms, adjusted by inflation, cobalt is the cheapest it’s been in at least half a century. The best chance the cobalt market has to rebalance is to patiently wait for demand to catch up with the burst of recent extra supply. It doesn’t help that sales of electric vehicles have disappointed so far this year everywhere except China, reducing demand for batteries.But low commodity prices will certainly help to give demand an impetus. The episodic price spikes during the last two decades prompted a huge engineering effort to reduce cobalt usage. The money spent in research and development created new battery chemistries such as NMC 811 that lowered the cobalt content in the battery’s cathode to just 10%, down from 20% in earlier batteries known as NMC 622, or even 30% in NMC 523.At current cobalt prices, R&D dollars are going elsewhere, and the industry isn’t trying to cut the commodity usage. Indeed, the opposite is true, with executives telling me they see signs of the return of higher cobalt content for some battery applications.The market for lithium has followed a similar pattern, with Chinese companies boosting supply so quickly that they overwhelmed the market. Not only is more of the metal being dug up, Chinese companies are also getting very good at recycling old batteries, creating an extra layer of supply. The result has been the same as with cobalt: The market has cratered. Benchmark lithium prices have fallen to about $11,000 per metric ton, down from the most recent peak of almost $70,000 per ton in early 2023.As with many other commodities, China inflated a bubble in critical minerals. Its domestic demand for batteries was strong — and its dominance of the supply chain was so large that many outside China were prompted to stockpile cobalt and lithium, spurred on by ominous warnings from US and European policymakers. For a brief period, demand overwhelmed supply.But what China did, China has also undone. It went all in on boosting supply, and the result has been a mighty crash. But don’t be fooled by the current low prices; while they may not recover anytime soon, China’s absolute dominance of critical minerals pose a clear and persistent danger to the future production of the batteries needed to wean the world off fossil fuels. More from Bloomberg Opinion: Want more from Bloomberg Opinion? OPIN. Web readers, click . Or subscribe to .
