Trading in Cobalt and Molybdenum Oxide Futures at the London Metal Exchange made a respectable start yesterday (Monday February 22).
Only a few lots were traded on the first day, but there has been some favourable feedback from the market. “We’ve been very encouraged,” the LME’s manager for new products, Chris Evans, told FOi.
The LME hopes the contracts will bring transparency, regulated pricing, risk management and clearing to the markets for these ‘minor metals’.
Cobalt, mainly produced as a by-product of copper and nickrinel mining, comes mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, and is used for making pigments and alloys. Molybdenum is useful for pigments and catalysts and is mined in the US, China, Chile and Peru, often with copper and tungsten.
The first trades were cleared on the electronic trading platform LME Select, yesterday morning. One lot...