Benchmark has observed no cobalt hydroxide trades over the past 10 days, leading to the daily price assessments to hold steady at $22.00–$23.00/lb. However, Benchmark has noted a widening spread between bids and offers, which are reported between $17.00–$22.00/lb in Benchmark’s weekly cobalt price assessment. Benchmark's daily CIF Asia cobalt hydroxide assessment only accounts for confirmed  transactions rather than indications, sentiment, or levels at which somebody says they would be willing to deal, which means it tracks evidenced trades and nothing else. That design choice is usually invisible to the user, because in a functioning market the distance between a trade and a well-informed indication is small, but in a week like this one it becomes the whole picture. Put those two series side-by-side and the market becomes legible, because the sell-side remains anchored to the level where material last actually changed hands while the buy-side has marked itself down five dollars, or roughly 23% below it. Nothing has traded across that gap, so the bid has not been validated by a single transaction and the offer has not been tested by a single buyer willing to lift it.

In early August, US auto giant General Motors (GM) announced it was relinquishing its 49.9% stake in SynergyCells, a JV with Samsung SDI, and as such its stake in the under-construction cell plant in Indiana, US. It is the third battery cell production plant for which GM has ceded its stake back to the South Korean partner, and follows similar moves by Stellantis and Ford over the past two years that have given South Korean firms a tighter grip on US cell manufacturing.

Africa is a key mining destination for a range of critical minerals across the energy transition supply chain. However, the majority of these minerals are exported for processing outside of the region. Most notably, Africa is the largest source of mined cobalt, where the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the subject of a previous Regional Spotlight, is the world’s leading supplier. The continent also leads global supply of mined manganese ore; it was responsible for three quarters of this in 2025.

Hakainde Hichilema was declared president-elect of Zambia on 18 August. Hichilema was re-elected after securing nearly 3 million votes, more than 1.1 million votes ahead of his opponent, Brian Mundubile of the NRPUP, and comfortably above the 50% threshold required to avoid a run-off. "The result is expected to deliver policy and geopolitical continuity, including the continuation of the beneficiation agenda set out in Zambia's 2024 critical minerals strategy," said Benchmark's lead policy and geopolitical analyst Bryan Bille. Copper is a crucial export for Zambia, accounting for around three-quarters of the total value of the country’s exports. Mined production in 2026 is estimated at 901kt, a healthy growth of 11% over last year, as assessed by Benchmark’s Copper Service. The Zambian government is aiming to increase output to 3Mtpa by 2031.