144 



UNITED STATES MINERAL RESOURCES 



Table 29. — World production of cobalt in 1969 ' 



[From DeHulI (1971, p. 401). Short tons of contained cobalt: ', estimate] 

 Country Production 



Australia "330 



Canada 1,602 



Cuba 1,700 



Finland 1,800 



Germany (West) 864 



Morocco '1,700 



U.S.S.R. '1,650 



Zaire '11,000 



Zambia 1,650 



Total 22,296 



1 Excluding Bulgaria, East Germany, Poland, and the United States. 



The great disparity between domestic production 

 and consumption, particularly during periods of 

 national emergency, is a matter of serious concern. 

 This disparity may well increase in the future. Ac- 

 cording to Reno (1970, p. 270), the annual demand 

 for cobalt in the United States in the year 2000 is 

 estimated to be at least 18.6 million pounds and possi- 

 bly as much as 30.5 million pounds. Most of this 

 metal will have to be imported, with the attendant 

 costs in foreign exchange, unless substitutes can be 

 developed or available domestic sources can be 

 utilized more efficiently,. 



The forecast of cumulative demand for cobalt in 

 the United States from 1968 to the year 2000 ranges 

 from 520 to 670 million pounds (Reno, 1970, p. 273) . 

 The world's cumulative demand for cobalt for the 

 same period ranges from 1,645 to 1,997 million 

 pounds. The potential supply of primary cobalt in 

 the world at current prices is more than 8-10 times 

 the cumulative total of domestic demand and more 

 than 2.5 times the cumulative total of world demand. 

 This supply, however, is available only at a rate of 

 40-50 million pounds per year, chiefly as a byprod- 

 uct of nickel and copper mining. Supplies are thus 

 tied to production of the major product, but produc- 

 tion of these elements will also increase. Under cur- 

 rent competitive economic conditions, future sup- 

 plies will continue to come at no relative increase in 

 current price (Reno, 1970, p. 273) from sulfide de- 

 posits in Zaire, Canada, Morocco, and Zambia, and 

 from the laterites of New Caledonia, Cuba, Indo- 

 nesia, the Philippines, and other tropical lands. Be- 

 ginning in 1954, however, the consumption of cobalt 

 in other nations has increased at accelerating rates 

 far in excess of that in the United States (Piedboeuf, 

 1961, p. 3). The economic competition for available 

 cobalt, especially under emergency conditions, per- 

 haps will become greater in the future. 



Alleviation of the increasing demand for the pro- 

 duction of cobalt may possibly be found in the dis- 



covery and development of acceptable substitutes and 

 the increased recycling of scrap. So far as is known, 

 however, many of the alternate materials proposed 

 as substitutes for cobalt also are strategic industrial 

 metals, including nickel, and for some applications, 

 vanadium, molybdenum, tungsten, and chromium. 

 No substitutes are known, however, for the use of 

 cobalt in carbides and in some tool steels (Reno, 

 1970, p. 269). In other applications, several organic 

 and mineral catalysts and driers can be used in the 

 place of cobalt, but only at a loss in effectiveness. 

 The same is true of substitutes for Co"" as a source of 

 gamma radiation. 



Few published data are currently available on the 

 quantities of cobalt-bearing scrap that are recovered 

 and reused in the United States. The quantity may 

 be large, inasmuch as increasing volumes of cobalt- 

 bearing superalloy are being used and the service 

 life of many of the products made from these alloys 

 is relatively short. Permanent magnets are also a 

 potential source of secondary cobalt. According to 

 Reno (1970, p. 268), export statistics show that at 

 least 1.5 million pounds of cobalt-bearing scrap is 

 generated and shipped out of the United States 

 annually. 



EXPLOITATION 



Cobalt is now produced primarily as a byproduct 

 of the mining and metallurgical processing of cop- 

 per, nickel, and silver ores. More than half the 

 cobalt produced comes from the strata-bound de- 

 posits of copper in central Africa. Major production 

 also comes from sulfide ores of copper, nickel, and 

 iron associated with mafic rocks in Canada and Fin- 

 land. Currently, only the mines at Bou Azzer, Moroc- 

 co, are producing cobalt as a major product from 

 vein deposits. 



In the United States some cobalt has been produced 

 intermittently for more than 100 years. One of the 

 principal early domestic sources of cobalt production 

 was the Gap nickel mine, Lancaster County, Pa. 

 Joseph Wharton operated the mine until 1893 and 

 smelted the ore containing nickel, copper, and 0.1 

 percent cobalt, at the Camden Nickel Works. Records 

 indicate that a total of 143,499 pounds of cobalt oxide 

 was produced from 1869 to 1893. Wharton's process 

 for commercially recovering small amounts of cobalt 

 from mixed sulfide ores in the mafic rocks served as 

 a basis for some modern technology used in Canada 

 and Europe. In the lead district of southeast Mis- 

 souri, the Mine La Motte and Fredericktown areas 

 also have been leading producers of cobalt — at least 

 5.2 million pounds from 1844 to 1961. The Madison 

 mine, near Fredericktown, produced 2.8 million 



