I think this is a somewhat smart move by the DRC. Glencore have...

I think this is a somewhat smart move by the DRC. Glencore have been jawboning the newcomers on the supply side with threats of quadrupling production, now this has come back to bite them. Glencore have an interest in making others think that the price of cobalt will stay low, but even they admit the demand side is overwhelming.

The single most interesting gambit here is the super profits tax. By putting a cost on a lowball value of cobalt in feasibility studies, it induces new projects to estimate the forward price of cobalt (for the entire life of the mine!) as high as possible so they don't get hit. By doing so, it will attract investment into the sector because every new DRC producer will say the price is going to the moon. In fact it will affect every existing mine, but new mines who claim high product price will be able to avoid it. So it massively incentivises new projects and causes them to up their price target at the same time. Clever eh?