Camec, the London-listed junior miner, last week mothballed its Mukondo mine, one of the world's richest cobalt mines, saying it might resume production in early 2009 if prices recover. “It is almost as is there is a buyers' strike,” said Andrew Groves, chief executive of Camec, referring to Chinese buyers who were buying record quantities of the metal six months ago and sending it to China's factories to be processed into batteries, propeller blades, magnets and chemicals, among a range of applications so varied that cobalt demand can be seen as a rough proxy of industrial activity.
成立不久的倫敦上市礦業公司中非礦業和勘探公司（Camec，簡稱：中非礦業）上週封存了旗下的Mukondo礦，稱如果鈷價回升，它可能在2009年初恢復生產。Mukondo礦是全球最富饒的鈷礦之一。在談到中國買家時，中非礦業執行長安德魯•格羅夫斯(Andrew Groves)表示：「買家們簡直就像在舉行罷工。」中國買家的鈷購買量在6個月前還創了紀錄。他們將鈷運回中國的工廠，加工成電池、螺旋槳葉片、磁鐵和化工品等等。鈷的應用範圍是如此寬廣，以至於它的需求量可被視爲工業活動的一個粗略代表。