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The worldwide availability of cobalt
Author(s) -
Willard D. G.,
Bleiwas D. I.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
natural resources forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.646
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1477-8947
pISSN - 0165-0203
DOI - 10.1111/j.1477-8947.1991.tb00120.x
Subject(s) - cobalt , laterite , resource (disambiguation) , business , production (economics) , nickel , natural resource economics , environmental science , economics , metallurgy , computer science , materials science , computer network , macroeconomics
The US Department of Interior, Bureau of Mines has evaluated the potential resource and annual availability of cobalt from 27 deposits or districts in 11 market economy countries. More than 90% of primary cobalt production from market economy countries, mainly by‐product output from copper and nickel operations, was analysed. The producing operations evaluated in this study were expected to produce about 19 000 t of cobalt in 1989, significantly less than the available capacity of 31 000 t. Approximately 1200 000 t of cobalt is potentially recoverable at the demonstrated resource level. Very large additional resources exist, especially in laterite deposits, but are at the inferred level.