Yet, global supply still increased from 238,000 tonnes in 2023 to 290,000 tonnes in 2024, according to the US Geological Survey
The problem is 98% of the world's cobalt comes as a by-product to either nickel or copper, meaning the metal has no independent floor price or self-correcting supply mechanism.
Production has continued booming because of surging nickel output in Indonesia, the world's second largest cobalt producer, and rising copper output in the DRC.
China's CMOC Group reported a 55% year-on-year increase in copper output from its DRC operations last year. With the copper came an extra 60,000 tonnes of cobalt, flooding an already over-supplied market.
Global stocks of cobalt have mushroomed to the equivalent of 233 days worth of consumption, according to consultancy Benchmark Minerals.
The cobalt price has reacted positively to news of the export suspension, the most active CME contract jumping to $6.80 (R124.40) per kilogram in a week.
But a ban on exports is only a short-term panacea, likely leading to a build-up in stocks of intermediate product cobalt hydroxide in the DRC. This is what happened in 2022-2023, when the DRC government suspended exports of copper and cobalt from CMOC in a protracted tax dispute with the Chinese company.
CMOC didn't stop producing during the near year-long export halt and simply accumulated ever more inventory at its production sites.
The impact showed up in China's copper imports from the DRC. After slowing significantly in the first part of 2023 imports accelerated sharply in the second half as the stockpiled metal was exported.
A four-month suspension of cobalt exports is likely to generate the same outcome: a short-term booster followed by renewed price weakness as exports rebound.
The DRC government needs another solution. Options include extending the export ban beyond four months or introducing an export quota system. But as long as CMOC and Glencore keep producing copper, which they will given that metal's high price, they will continue generating by-product cobalt units.