Upstream: Extraction, processing, and manufacturing

Chart 23 below shows the ore-to-metal ratio used in the model for cobalt, by far the lowest of the five materials examined in this study. This reflects an input assumption that vast quantities of ore must be processed to produce relatively small amounts of refined cobalt, consistent with cobalt being recovered primarily as a by-product of copper and nickel mining rather than from dedicated cobalt ores—a structural characteristic rooted in the geology of the deposits from which it is extracted.

Chart 24 shows the loss rates used in the model at each processing stage, with manufacturing-stage losses assumed to consistently exceed those at the semi-fabrication stage. Because cobalt requires such large upstream material throughput to produce each unit of refined metal, these processing losses carry a disproportionately large upstream footprint. Every tonne lost during manufacturing represents not only lost refined cobalt, but also the substantial volumes of ore already extracted, processed, and disposed of as mining waste. This makes manufacturing yield improvement a particularly valuable intervention for cobalt. Unlike the structural limitations imposed by geology and by-product production, manufacturing losses arise within industrial processing and are therefore more directly amenable to technological and operational improvement.⁹⁸