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Committee member presses Mr. Black on Cerro Verde cobalt processing, warns China dominates refining
Summary
During a House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing, a Committee member demanded to know where cobalt from the Cerro Verde project would be processed, asserting that China holds a near-monopoly and claiming it accounts for about 95% of refined commercial-grade cobalt processing capacity; the witness disputed parts of the question’s framing.
At a hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, a Committee member repeatedly pressed a witness identified in the record as Mr. Black over where cobalt from the Cerro Verde project would be processed and raised concerns about reliance on Chinese refining capacity.
The Committee member, speaking at the start of the exchange, demanded a direct answer: “Where is it processed?” He said the Cerro Verde project would “pour millions of taxpayer dollars to support nickel and cobalt production in Brazil” and added, “It’s China,” when asserting where the cobalt is refined.
The matter of processing and classification became a point of contention. Mr. Black described Cerro Verde as “an investment in Brazil, for heavy rare earths called Cerro Verde,” and pushed back on the Committee member’s line of questioning by saying cobalt is not a heavy rare earth. Mr. Black said the Committee member’s question was “a little confusing” and attempted to correct the premise rather than directly naming a processing location.
The Committee member pressed the point with a quantitative claim about global refining capacity, stating, “China has 95% of the world's refined commercial grade cobalt chemical processing capacity.” That figure was presented as the member’s claim during the exchange; the witness did not affirm that number on the record.
A separate participant interrupted near the end of the segment to say the Committee member had “missed the explanation,” indicating a dispute in the hearing over whether the technical distinctions Mr. Black raised addressed the member’s concerns.
The exchange left the processing location and precise supply-chain implications unresolved on the record. No vote or formal action was recorded in the transcript; the segment focused on questioning and technical clarification about the Cerro Verde investment and associated commodity processing.
The hearing transcript records the back-and-forth but does not provide a definitive statement from the witness confirming the Committee member’s processing-location assertion or the 95% figure; those remained contested or unconfirmed in the exchange.
