Used for centuries to beautify glass and ceramics, the mineral is also tough enough to be used in drill bits and steel belted tires. Cobalt’s current popularity however stems from its use in fuel-efficient jet engines – such as the state-of-the-art Boeing 787, rechargeable batteries and the ever-growing telecommunications hardware market. With jet fuel costs skyrocketing and personal electronics in high demand, the price of cobalt tripled in 2007 and climbed to a high of $52.50 per pound.

 

Annual production rarely exceeds 65,000 tons and over half of all cobalt reserves are in the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). What’s more, tech-hungry China’s cobalt consumption is expected to climb at least 7 percent each year through 2009 – and at least four leading mobile phone producers contain cobalt from DRC. These companies run the likely risk of supporting illegal export through Rwanda and Angola and unfair mining practices which often involve sever human rights abuses. It was estimated that in 2005, 75 percent of all cobalt exported from the Katanga provice were illegally exported.

 

 

In 2007 alone, 1.15 billion mobile phones were sold worldwide and by the end of 2008, half of the world’s population will own a mobile phone.

 

With over 3 billion people encountering cobalt on a daily basis what impact will this have on the already fragile political and economic arena of eastern DRC? What are the current work conditions, environment within DRC and will this be changed with quadruple prices? What environmental impact does this have to subsequent communities? Will export rents contribute to DRC’s GDP or will it fuel the existing civil war and cause the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda – formerly Interahamwe) to gain an upper hand in the war? Will cell phone manufacturers address this issue and if they do will it put enough strain on the global supply to cause the Congolese cobalt market to snowball out of control?