Glencore and miners pivot hard to copper as DRC cobalt quotas bite into output

Glencore's own-sourced cobalt production fell to 5,800 tonnes in the first quarter of 2026 — a 39% year-on-year decline — as the company adopted a deliberate "copper-first" strategy across its Democratic Republic of Congo assets. (FACT: Glencore Q1 2026 Production Report, April 30, 2026) The decline is not a reflection of geological depletion or operational failure. It is the direct consequence of the DRC's cobalt export quota system, which replaced a months-long export ban in September 2025 and caps hydroxide exports at 96,600 tonnes annually for 2026 and 2027.

The mechanism is straightforward: Glencore's DRC assets — principally the Kamoto Copper Company (KCC) and Mutanda mine — produce copper and cobalt as co-products. Under the quota system, cobalt produced in excess of the company's 22,800-tonne annual allocation (including 2025 carryover) cannot be exported and must remain in-country, incurring storage costs or being held in solution. So Glencore is running its concentrators for copper first, leaving cobalt in the ground or in process circuits. The company explicitly stated that "existing finished cobalt inventories are sufficient to fully deliver into near-term quota levels." (FACT: Glencore Q1 2026 Production Report)

The copper side tells the opposite story. Glencore's own-sourced copper production reached 199,600 tonnes in Q1, up 19% year-on-year, driven by improved ore grades at its African copper operations (up 27,400 tonnes) and higher throughput at the Antamina joint venture in Peru (up 13,500 tonnes). (FACT: Glencore, April 30, 2026) The company's marketing division — which trades physical commodities across its global network — is now on track to exceed the top end of its long-term annual EBIT guidance range of $2.3–3.5 billion, benefiting from the same market dislocations that the quota system is creating. (FACT: Glencore Q1 commentary, April 30, 2026)

Glencore is not alone in the pivot. Eurasian Resources Group (ERG), the Luxembourg-based miner in which the Kazakh government holds a 40% stake, slashed cobalt hydroxide output by 70% in 2025 to 5,700 tonnes. (FACT: Semafor, May 4, 2026) ERG has scope to double output in 2026 from that depressed base, constrained by its 12,325-tonne quota allocation. But ERG now faces an additional threat: military-backed intruders occupied a portion of its Metalkol cobalt deposit in May 2026, with Congolese soldiers protecting what ERG says is an illegal mining operation threatening the commercial viability of one of the world's largest cobalt operations. (FACT: Mining.com/Bloomberg, May 19, 2026)

CMOC Group (formerly China Molybdenum) is taking the opposite approach. The company maintained its 2026 cobalt production guidance at 100,000–120,000 tonnes following a record 117,549 tonnes in 2025 — roughly equal to the entire DRC annual quota cap for a single producer. (FACT: OilPrice.com, May 5, 2026) CMOC's strategy is to ramp both copper and cobalt production aggressively, banking on its ~31,200-tonne quota estimate and the ability to stockpile excess material in-country. The divergence between Glencore's quota-compliant strategy and CMOC's volume-maximizing approach creates a two-tier cobalt supply dynamic that significantly affects global availability forecasts.

The smallest player illustrates the system's sharpest edge. MMG Ltd., whose majority shareholder is China Minmetals Corp., commissioned a purpose-built cobalt processing facility at its Kinsevere copper mine in 2023 with an annual capacity of 4,000–6,000 tonnes. Under the DRC's pro-rata quota methodology — which allocates quotas based on each producer's export volumes during a reference period — MMG received just 360 tonnes for the entirety of 2026. (FACT: Discovery Alert, May 15, 2026) "MMG is proud of our economic and ESG contribution to the DRC and we were disappointed that this was not considered in the cobalt quota," Aaron Chen, general manager of MMG's Kinsevere operations, said at the Cobalt Institute's annual congress in Madrid. (FACT: Bitget News, May 15, 2026) The allocation makes the plant "economically unviable."

The quota regime has succeeded in one objective: cobalt prices have rallied approximately 160% since the February 2025 export ban was first imposed. (FACT: FocusEconomics, May 21, 2026) Cobalt hydroxide prices surged 263% from Q4 2024 lows of $4,012 per tonne to Q4 2025 levels of $14,560 per tonne, though the full benefit has been limited by administrative delays — no exports left the DRC from June 2025 onwards, and Q4 2025 quotas rolled into Q1 2026 with no clear dispatch timeline. (FACT: AZO Mining, May 8, 2026) S&P Global models the quotas pushing the cobalt market into a near-term deficit, lifting the DRC's export value by roughly 24% in 2027 versus 2024. (FACT: Semafor, May 4, 2026)

Meanwhile, Indonesia is expanding its cobalt footprint. Production reached 38,324 tonnes in 2025 and is forecast to grow 39% to 53,318 tonnes in 2026 — all as a by-product of nickel processing via HPAL technology. (FACT: AZO Mining, May 8, 2026) If DRC actual shipments fall to 70,000–80,000 tonnes due to administrative delays, Indonesia's competitive position in the global cobalt feedstock market strengthens further, structurally reshaping a supply chain that has been DRC-dependent for two decades.

The number that matters for your business

A buyer procuring 50 tonnes/month of cobalt hydroxide at pre-ban prices of roughly $4,000/tonne (Q4 2024) is now paying approximately $14,500/tonne — an additional $10,500 per tonne, or $525,000 more per month on the same volume. For an NMC battery cathode manufacturer consuming 500 tonnes annually, the annualized cost increase exceeds $5 million. The DRC quota system has created a structural premium for hydroxide that shows no sign of easing: unused Q1 2026 quotas expire on June 30, 2026, and the national cap for 2027 is already set at the same 96,600-tonne level, meaning tightness extends at least through 2027 regardless of demand growth.