Glencore Joins Project Vault With $500 Million Cobalt Commitment

Glencore pledged $500 million to VaultCo, a public-private partnership initiated by the Export-Import Bank to obtain critical minerals for a US government reserve, according to Reuters on Wednesday. This makes Glencore the fourth supplier to Project Vault, following Hartree Partners, Mercuria Americas, and Traxys. The commitment came seven months after the US Export-Import Bank's board approved the program's underlying loan of $10 billion, combined with around $2 billion in private capital, for a total of $12 billion.

Project Vault's initial list of off-takers included Clarios, GE Vernova, Western Digital, and Boeing. VaultCo is set to source cobalt to shield US manufacturers from foreign supply chain issues across all critical minerals designated by the US Geological Survey. Glencore, which operates significant cobalt assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where most of the world's mined cobalt is produced, will bypass China's refining capacity by directly supplying VaultCo.