Africa infrastructure vital to cobalt future, says Dinah McLeod
- 10 March 2026
The head of the world’s main cobalt industry body says vital US and Chinese investments to unlock future supply of the critical metal should not be looked at as “either or” scenarios in a volatile international geopolitical climate.
Cobalt Institute director general Dinah McLeod says large investments by US and European Union, and Chinese, groups in infrastructure connecting the Central African Copperbelt with ports in west and east Africa shouldn’t be framed as “East versus West geopolitics” or a competition with one potential winner.
A Bloomberg report from the sidelines of the recent mining conference in South Africa said infrastructure was a hot topic at the event. Chinese efforts to refurbish, or modernise, the TAZARA railway between the copper belt and Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam port, originally built with Chinese support between 1970 and 1975 during the Mao Zedong era, and the US/EU-backed Lobito rail corridor through Angola were again in the spotlight and again cast as a race.
“A lot of politicians have tried to characterise these two projects as being complementary, forming a corridor that will criss-cross the entire African continent for the first time, but at the end of the day it is a power play between the West and China in accessing these critical minerals. That’s the core of this,” Bloomberg’s report said.
But McLeod said both projects could deliver much-needed copper and cobalt to the world.
“What is the most effective model for security of supply? I would challenge that you have to choose between those models. The industry needs both of them and they’re absolutely not mutually exclusive,” McLeod said in an interview previewing next month’s Resourcing Tomorrow Hong Kong conference.
She will speak with critical minerals investment and trading groups at the event on a panel looking at the building of resilient and sustainable supply chains in an increasingly fragmented world where higher premiums are being put on the security and reliability of commodity trade channels.
“There’s a huge need for greater infrastructure [in Africa],” McLeod said.
“The Lobito corridor addresses the genuine infrastructure deficit there is right now in Zambia and DRC, these landlocked countries that need that Atlantic access. [The] improved logistics are going to benefit everybody. It will reduce costs and transit times. So we salute that and really looking forward to seeing that progress.”
The African Development Bank said this month the continent needed tens of billions of dollars of investment in infrastructure to facilitate industrialisation and economic development.
Cobalt is one of the minerals expected to underpin various global industry sectors primed for exceptional growth over the next decade, including clean energy and transport, aerospace and robotics. The Cobalt Institute says it is also a critical material in military applications, from high-performance superalloys in jet engines, gas turbines and armoured vehicles to electronics, missile systems and magnetic stealth technology. The US military last year made its first significant cobalt purchases in more than 30 years.
The DRC and Zambia have both been expanding copper and cobalt production, with the former set to introduce export quotas on unprocessed cobalt this year. London-based BMI said recently that could support higher cobalt prices ahead of investment in the DRC’s domestic refining capacity, though previous attempts by the DRC government to exert greater control over raw material flows across its borders have generally failed.
“We now expect prices to average US$25 per pound in 2026, up more than 50% from the 2025 average,” BMI analyst Amelia Haines said. “This reflects the DRC’s decision to cap cobalt exports at roughly half of typical annual production, which is expected to leave global cobalt supply materially below 2024 levels.”
The country has about 50% of global cobalt reserves and produces 70% of the world’s mined cobalt. China currently dominates DRC cobalt mine ownership and the global midstream market, sourcing most of its cobalt from DRC.
The US, and also the EU, are now trying to rapidly build cobalt chemical refining capacity and establish lithium-ion battery cell and cathode precursor production capacity to reduce reliance on Chinese sources. To be successful they must have raw (and recycled) material supply.
The Cobalt Institute says China is also building most of the world’s cobalt recycling capacity though South Korea continues to expand production.
“The general view is that out until 2050 recycling might meet as much as 39% of global [cobalt] supply, so it’s a really important component of supply but it will not replace mining,” McLeod said.
“It’s worth noting, though, that the infrastructure for recycling is being built right now, and is not just planned, in the Asia Pacific region.
“China [and] South Korea are scaling their capacity significantly. By 2030 [they’re] probably going to be ahead of the global average on secondary cobalt supply, even if the volumes are relatively modest compared to the primary.”
McLeod will moderate a panel, “Building resilient and sustainable supply chains”, with Quadmet CEO Vinit Lakhani, NEO Capital founder Anthony Tse and Oryx Global Partners’ Damian Pearson, at Resourcing Tomorrow Hong Kong, from April 16-17 in Hong Kong.
