Abstract
The demand of cobalt is surging largely due to the increasing use of Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs.) However, the supply chain of cobalt has been unstable. The production countries are very limited and most intermediate products are concentrated in China. Most existing research focused on the specific parts of the supply chain and didn’t cover the chain from cobalt mines to end-uses. This study aimed to understand the entire supply structure of cobalt being used as LIBs by using the social network analysis. We found out that the supply structure of cobalt had low robustness and resilience. More importantly, China and South Korea were successful in building the network for procuring cobalt, while Japan could not. Finally, it was concluded that the global supply structure of cobalt for LIBs was very fragile as a whole and Japan especially had the huge risk considering its demand for cobalt.
