Shares in China’s largest cobalt refiner Huayou Cobalt fell 10 per cent on Monday after the company said a collapse in cobalt prices had almost wiped out its first-quarter profit.
Huayou Cobalt, a supplier of the material used in electric car batteries, said net profit fell to Rmb12.4m ($1.8m) in the first three months, from Rmb851m a year earlier.
The stumble underscores the threat to refiners, which process the metal into a form usable by battery makers. Last week, shares in Belgium-based cobalt refiner Umicore also fell by the most on record after it said it expected earnings in 2019 to be about 10 per cent lower than analysts had anticipated.