Mining major Glencore has agreed to buy metals trader Rami Weisfisch’s last cobalt reserves: nearly 2,000 metric tons worth $115 million. In a good example of how brokers work, the traded cobalt was originally acquired in 2015 and stored in Europe and the US.
Glencore is buying the last of Weisfisch’s cobalt, stored in the US, and most likely selling it back to the federal government so it can be added to the Project Vault program, which aims to reduce dependence on Chinese supplies.
Cobalt prices have risen sharply, partly due to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) banning exports and Glencore striking smart deals. The Anglo-Swiss mining giant has just acquired 2,000 metric tons of cobalt to resell to the US government in an effort to bolster Project Vault. Most likely.
Too many things had to happen for this deal to make sense. So, for context: In early 2025, the Democratic Republic of the Congo temporarily banned cobalt exports to stop a price decline and reassert control over prices and supply. That pushed major miners like Glencore and China’s CMOC into force majeure situations.
In October last year, Kinshasa replaced the blanket ban with a quota system, limiting total cobalt exports and aiming to better manage global supply and prices. But they were set too low for the year 2026-27, and unused allocations from 2025 may carry over to early 2026. The quotas restricted the availability of export cobalt, tightening global supply and driving up prices. Exactly what the DRC wanted to happen. But prices went crazy, rising 160% annually, incentivizing the release of stock from private inventories like Weisfisch’s.
Israeli metals trader Rami Weisfisch, famous for a long-running real estate battle with his younger brother, is known for his involvement in the global cobalt and minor metals markets. He served as president of Minor Metals Inc., a US company, and previously headed Metal Resources Group (MRG), a Bahamian-registered metals trading company that operated primarily from London. And through this company, he controlled a significant portion of the world’s cobalt supply, supposedly around 30% of annual production in 1999. He had the foresight, bought cheap, and took the lead.
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And this transaction with Glencore marks Weisfisch’s long-standing role in the market and is considered the end of its roughly 50-year involvement in the cobalt trade.
This is not the end of Glencore’s involvement with cobalt, but it is a definite decline.