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Warrants for 5 tonnes of cobalt were issued late last week in Rotterdam, marking the first material to be placed on warrant since the launch of new minor metals futures contracts by the London Metal Exchange (LME) in February this year. The generation of an LME warrant, which provides a convenient and simple way to effect deliveries of quantities of metal, comes ahead of the launch of cash trading in minor metals on 19th May, 2010.
Chris Evans, Head of Business Development at the LME, said, “For the contract to be successful the market needs to be comfortable delivering cobalt onto LME warrant and taking it off warrant. This is the first step in that process.”
Since being launched on 22nd February, 2010, 611 lots of cobalt (1 lot = 1 tonne) have been traded.
Cobalt has many applications such as the production of catalysts, batteries, chemicals, alloys and dyes. Molybdenum is widely used as an alloy agent in steel and stainless steel.
