【经济学人】金属恶魔：西方各国在钴市场上的困境 [英国媒体]

Goblin metals

---金属恶魔

What if China corners the cobalt market?

---假如中国垄断了钴市场，我们该怎么办？

Nickel could make a good substitute—provided car batteries don’t catch fire

---镍或许是个不错的替代品。。。假如不怕汽车电池着火的话



COBALT derives its name from Kobold, a mischievous German goblin who, according to legend, lurks underground. For centuries it vexed medi miners by lookinglike a valuable ore that subsequently turned into worthless—and sometimes noxious—rubble. Once again it is threatening to cause trouble, this time in the growing market for batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), each of which uses about 10kg of cobalt. The source of mischief is no longer in Germany, though, but in China.

---COBALT（钴）这个名字来源于Kobold，一个根据传说潜伏在地下的淘气的德国小精灵。它使中世纪的矿工们感到苦恼了几百年，因为它们刚开始看着像一块贵重的矿石，后来却发现是毫无价值的——有时甚至是有毒的——碎石头。这一次，随着电动汽车电池市场的增长（每块汽车电池使用约10千克的钴），它又来淘气了。然而，这次的源头已经不在德国，而是在中国。

It is widely known that more than half of the world’s cobalt reserves and production are in one dangerously unstable country, the Democratic Republic of Congo. What is less well known is that four-fifths of the cobalt sulphates and oxides used to make the all-important cathodes for lithium-ion batteries are refined in China. (Much of the other 20% is processed in Finland, but its raw material, too, comes from a mine in Congo, majority-owned by a Chinese firm, China Molybdenum.)

众所周知，世界上一半以上的钴储备和产能都在一个局势危险、政权不稳的国家，刚果民主共和国。但不为人所知的是，五分之四的用于制造锂离子电池最重要的阴极的硫酸钴和氧化物是在中国得提炼的。（其余20%大部分是在芬兰加工的，但其原材料也来自刚果的一家矿场，一家中国公司，洛阳钼业对该矿场拥有多数股权）

On March 14th concerns about China’s grip on Congo’s cobalt production deepened when GEM, a Chinese battery maker, said it would acquire a third of the cobalt shipped by Glencore, the world’s biggest producer of the metal, between 2018 and 2020—equivalent to almost half of the world’s 110,000-tonne production in 2017. This is likely to add momentum to a rally that has pushed the price of cobalt up from an average of $26,500 a tonne in 2016 to above $90,000 a tonne.

3月14日，随着中国电池制造商格林美股份有限公司(GEM)表示，将在2018年至2020年期间，定向采购全球最大的钴产品生产商嘉能可(Glencore)三分之一的产品，这相当于2017年全球11万吨钴产量的近一半，这令人们更加担忧中国对刚果钴产量的控制。该举措可能会进一步推动钴价从2016年的平均每吨26500美元上涨至每吨9万美元以上。

It is not known whether non-Chinese battery, EV or consumer-electronics manufacturers have done similar, unannounced deals with Glencore. But Sam Jaffe of Cairn Energy Research Advisors, a consultancy, says it will be a severe blow to some firms. He likens the outcome of the deal to a game of musical chairs in which Chinese battery manufacturers have taken all but one of the seats. “Everybody else is frantically looking for that last empty chair.”

目前尚不清楚是否有来自其他国家的电池、电动汽车或消费电子产品制造商与嘉能可（Glencore）达成了类似的幕后交易。但是引述咨询公司凯恩能源研究所的Sam Jaffe的说法，这对其他公司来说将是一个沉重的打击。他将该交易的结果比作一场抢座位游戏，在这场游戏中，中国的电池制造商把除了最后一个座位外的其他位置都抢了。“其他人都在疯狂地想要占据那最后的一个位子。”

Mr Jaffe doubts the cobalt grab is an effort by Chinese firms to corner or manipulate the market for speculative ends. Instead, he says, they are likely to be driven by a “desperate need” to fulfil China’s ambitious plans to step up production of EVs.

Sam Jaffe对“钴矿收购是中国公司为投机目的垄断或操纵市场”的说法提出了质疑，相反，他认为中国公司很可能受到“迫切需求”的驱动，以实现中国提升电动车产能的宏伟计划。

Others see it more ominously. George Heppel of CRU, a consultancy, says that, in addition to GEM sweeping up such a sizeable chunk of Glencore’s output, China Moly may eventually ship its Congo cobalt home rather than to Finland, giving China as much as 95% of the cobalt-chemicals market. “A lot of our clients are South Korean and Japanese tech firms and it’s a big concern of theirs that so much of the world’s cobalt sulphate comes from China.” Memories are still fresh of a maritime squabble in 2010, during which China restricted exports of rare-earth metals vital to Japanese tech firms. China produces about 85% of the world’s rare earths.

其他人士的看法则更悲观。咨询公司英国商品研究所的乔治·赫普尔(George Heppel)认为，除了格林美股份有限公司独吞了嘉能可的大量产品之外，洛阳钼业最终可能将其刚果产出的钴运回国内，而不是芬兰，这将使中国占据95%的钴化工产品市场份额。他说道：“我们的很多客户都是韩国和日本的科技公司，他们非常担心世界上大部分的硫酸钴（一种电池原料）都是中国产的。” 在2010年的中日钓鱼岛争端期间，中国叫停了对日本科技公司至关重要的稀土金属出口，这仍使人记忆犹新（中国生产的稀土约占世界总产量的85%）。

Few analysts expect the cobalt market to soften soon. Production in Congo is likely to increase in the next few years, but some investment may be deterred by a recent five-fold leap in royalties on cobalt. Investment elsewhere is limited because cobalt is almost always mined alongside copper or nickel. Even at current prices, the quantities needed are not enough to justify production for cobalt alone.

很少有分析师认为钴市场将快速疲软。刚果的产量在未来几年仍可能持续增加，但最近钴的开采权成本翻了五倍，可能会把一些开发商吓跑。在其他衍生产品的投资空间也很有限，因为钴几乎总是伴随着铜或镍一起被开采。即使按照目前的价格，单单靠钴的需求还量不足以为产能提供资金上的担保



But demand could explode if EVs surge in popularity. Mr Heppel says that, though most cobalt is currently mined for batteries in smartphones and for superalloys inside jet engines (see chart), its use for EVs could jump from 9,000 tonnes in 2017 to 107,000 tonnes in 2026.

但随着电动车越来越受欢迎，钴的需求可能会激增。赫普尔表示，尽管目前大多数开采的钴是用于制造智能手机电池和喷气发动机内的超耐热合金（见图表），但用于电动车的产量可能从2017年的9000吨猛增至2026年的10.7万吨。

The resulting higher prices would eventually unlock new sources of supply. But already non-Chinese battery manufacturers are looking for ways to protect themselves from potential shortages. Their best answer to date is the other “goblin metal” closely associated with cobalt, nickel, whose name comes from a German spirit closely related to Old Nick.

越来越高的钴价将最终迫使人们寻找新的供应来源。但在此之前，其他国家的电池制造商已经在寻求保护自己免受潜短缺影响的方案。到目前为止，他们找到的最佳答案是创造与钴、镍关系密切的另一个“金属恶魔”，其名字来自一个与“魔王”含义相近似的德国神袛。

The materials most commonly used for cathodes in EV batteries are a combination of nickel, manganese and cobalt known as NMC, and one of nickel, cobalt and aluminium known as NCA. As cobalt has become pricier and scarcer, some battery makers have produced cobalt-lite cathodes by raising the nickel content—to as much as eight times the amount of cobalt. This allows the battery to run longer on a single charge, but makes it harder to manufacture and more prone to burst into flames. The trick is to get the balance right.

最常用的电动汽车电池阴极材料是镍、锰和钴（NMC）的组合，以及镍、钴和铝（NCA）的组合。随着钴变得越来越昂贵和稀缺，一些电池制造商已经通过将镍含量提高到钴的8倍，生产出钴的比例相对较低的电池阴极。这使得电池在一次充电后运行时间更长，但却使电池更难以制造，更容易起火，该技术的关键是要找到一个平衡点。

Strangely, nickel has not had anything like cobalt’s price rise. Nor do the Chinese appear to covet it. Oliver Ramsbottom of McKinsey, a consultancy, says the reason for this relative indifference dates back to the commodities supercycle in 2000-12, when Indonesia and the Philippines ramped up production of class-2 nickel—in particular nickel pig iron, a lower-cost ingredient of stainless steel—until the bubble burst. The subsequent excess capacity and stock build-up caused nickel prices to plummet from $29,000 a tonne in 2011 to below $10,000 a tonne last year.

奇怪的是，镍价还没有出现过像钴价上涨这样的情况，中国公司似乎也对此并不在意。咨询公司麦肯锡(McKinsey)的奥利弗·拉姆斯托姆(Oliver Ramsbottom)表示，这种相对冷淡的原因要追溯到2000年至2012年的大宗商品超级周期。当时，印尼和菲律宾加大了2级镍的生产，特别是镍生铁，一种低成本的不锈钢原料，直到泡沫破裂。随后的产能过剩和库存积累导致镍价从2011年的每吨29000美元暴跌至去年的每吨10000美元以下。

As yet, the demand for high-quality nickel suitable for EVs has not boosted production. Output of Class-1 nickel for EVs was only 35,000 tonnes last year, out of total nickel production of 2.1m tonnes. But by 2025 McKinsey expects EV-related nickel demand to rise 16-fold to 550,000 tonnes.

到目前为止，对适合电动汽车的高质量镍的需求并没有带动产能。在去年210万吨的镍总产量中，用于电动汽车1级镍的产量仅为3.5万吨。但麦肯锡预计，到2025年，与电动汽车相关的镍需求将增长16倍，至55万吨。

In theory, the best way to ensure sufficient supplies of both nickel and cobalt would be for prices to rise enough to make mining them together more profitable. But that would mean more expensive batteries, and thus electric vehicles. Only a goblin would relish such a conundrum.

从理论上讲，确保镍和钴的充足供应的最佳途径是价格上升到足以保证开采的利润。但那将意味着电池将更贵，电动汽车成品也将更贵。这个问题几乎无解。