Under the current cycle, spring has arrived for non-ferrous metals. Following the surge in gold prices, silver's upward cycle has also begun. Against the backdrop of solid-state batteries approaching commercialization, the prosperity of cobalt and lithium continues to rise. Non-ferrous metal leaders including Ganfeng Lithium and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. have all emerged from their troughs.
From market performance perspective, the story of "elephants dancing" is unfolding for Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. While investors were still focusing on technology stocks, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. had quietly entered a major uptrend. On September 26, against the backdrop of collective pullbacks across major indices, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s stock price moved higher against the trend, with intraday gains exceeding 5% at one point, ultimately closing up 2.7%.
This is not the first time Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. has demonstrated counter-trend strength. From its recent performance, the company's stock price has been quite impressive. Statistics show that since September, its stock price has risen 18.9%, while the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.77% and the CSI 300 Index gained a modest 1.19% over the same period, with Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. significantly outperforming the broader market.
Looking at a longer timeframe, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s stock price has surged 54.32% over the past three months. Following the recent stock price rally, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s market capitalization has returned to 100 billion yuan, reaching 105.4 billion yuan.
As one of China's non-ferrous metal giants, after the end of a major non-ferrous cycle, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. entered a downward channel. While performance declined, its market cap shrank by more than 80% at its peak. However, with the cyclical recovery, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. has emerged from the doldrums.
In this context, the net worth of Chen Xuehua, the actual controller of Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd., has naturally risen with the tide. According to equity penetration analysis, Chen Xuehua holds 19.86% of Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s shares, worth over 20.9 billion yuan based on the latest market capitalization.
From a market perspective, compared to Ganfeng Lithium's Li Liangbin and Tianqi Lithium's Jiang Weiping, Chen Xuehua maintains a much lower profile. This is naturally related to the higher popularity of lithium mining following the new energy boom.
As the most stable products in the market, non-ferrous metals have consistently shown obvious cyclical characteristics. After this round of cyclical baptism, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. has clearly emerged from the bottom of this cycle. When market demand continues to explode, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. will certainly welcome a valuation reappraisal.
Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s history can be traced back to 2002, when it was originally Huayou Cobalt-Nickel Materials Co., Ltd. At that time, China's cobalt resource reserves accounted for only about 1% of the global total, but consumption exceeded half of the world's total. The severe mismatch between resources and market led Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s founder Chen Xuehua to decisively develop cobalt resources.
Due to the scarcity of domestic cobalt resources, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. extended its reach to overseas markets. In 2006, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s first copper-cobalt smelter in Congo began construction. The following year, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. acquired three Congolese mining companies for 264 million yuan, becoming the only private enterprise at that time with cobalt mining rights in Congo.
Through this acquisition, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s cobalt production capacity significantly increased to 39,000 tons, making it the world's largest cobalt smelting producer at the time.
In 2015, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. reached a milestone moment with its successful listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Subsequently, it acquired Congo's PE527 copper-cobalt mining rights for 1.793 billion yuan, further consolidating its advantages in the copper-cobalt field. At this point, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. had gradually completed its transformation from simply selling resources to an integrated "resources-smelting-sales" model.
However, the non-ferrous metals industry naturally has strong cyclical characteristics, even for relatively rare non-ferrous metals like cobalt and nickel, and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. did not escape the fate of cyclical fluctuations.
Looking back at recent years, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. has experienced three significant cyclical fluctuations.
The first cyclical fluctuation occurred from 2015-2017. Previously, influenced by the explosion of global smartphones and consumer electronics, demand for cobalt as a key element in ternary lithium battery cathode materials surged, driving prices up significantly. However, as the bubble burst, cobalt prices began to peak and decline. By 2015, cobalt prices quickly fell to their trough, and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd., holding substantial production capacity, consequently suffered performance losses, with net profit losses of 246 million yuan that year, a dramatic 269.22% year-on-year decline.
However, cobalt prices soon began to rise significantly again. From 2016 to 2017, cobalt prices soared from their low point to nearly 700,000 yuan per ton, and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. earned 1.893 billion yuan in 2017.
The second cyclical fluctuation occurred from 2019 to 2022. Affected by adjustments in the new energy battery industry, cobalt prices declined significantly, and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s net profit "plunged" from 1.528 billion yuan in 2018 to 119.5 million yuan, a massive 92.18% year-on-year decline.
After experiencing the fragility of pure resource business, to smooth cyclical impacts, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. accelerated its integrated industrial chain layout. In 2018, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. partnered with LG and POSCO to establish joint ventures, entering the ternary precursor field. Three years later, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. acquired Bamo Technology, quickly deploying ternary cathode business.
By 2022, with the explosion of the new energy vehicle industry, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s new energy battery materials and raw materials segment became its core, generating revenue of 47.74 billion yuan that year, accounting for 75.74% of total revenue.
The third cyclical fluctuation spans from 2023 to present. After the new energy vehicle industry exploded in 2022, the new energy battery materials industry began rapid expansion, leading to oversupply by 2023, with particularly severe overcapacity in ternary cathode materials.
According to predictions by Dongwu Securities and Xinluo Lithium Battery, 2025 ternary cathode material demand will be approximately 1.3 million tons, while supply could reach 1.997 million tons, representing excess capacity of 697,000 tons.
Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd., which had previously expanded on a large scale, consequently suffered backlash, falling into a two-year downturn.
After experiencing the downturn cycle from 2023 to 2024, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. showed clear recovery in 2025. From a performance perspective, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. achieved revenue of 37.2 billion yuan in the first half of this year, up 23.78% year-on-year, and net profit of 2.711 billion yuan, up 62.26% year-on-year.
Looking at the longer cycle, this is also Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s best half-year performance in recent years, with both half-year revenue and net profit reaching new highs.
Driven by performance growth, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s stock price performance has been quite impressive recently, with a 54.32% gain over the past three months. Following the recent stock price rally, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s market capitalization has returned to 100 billion yuan, reaching 105.4 billion yuan.
So what are the fundamental factors driving Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s performance recovery? The main factor is the recovery in cobalt and nickel prices.
From cobalt price fluctuations, cobalt shows very obvious cyclical characteristics. At the beginning of this year, against the backdrop of reduced demand, cobalt prices once fell to $9.95 per pound, breaking through historical cycle bottom ranges. However, after Congo announced on February 24 a four-month suspension of cobalt exports to address global cobalt oversupply, cobalt prices began to recover.
In June, Congo again announced a three-month extension until September 22, further pushing up cobalt prices. Currently, domestic cobalt prices have risen from 166,000 yuan per ton in February to 258,000 yuan per ton by the end of July, climbing to 270,000 yuan per ton in September.
From nickel price fluctuations, nickel products are currently Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s core revenue source, generating revenue of 12.84 billion yuan in the first half of this year, accounting for 34.51% of revenue.
Data shows that Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. began large-scale deployment of Indonesian nickel mineral resources from 2018, gradually implementing and scaling up production, becoming its current largest business segment. From 2021-2024, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd.'s nickel-related business (nickel ore + nickel intermediates) revenue expanded from 250 million yuan to 21.3 billion yuan. In the first half of 2025, it reached 18.38 billion yuan, surging over 110% year-on-year.
In fact, nickel and cobalt price trends have been very similar in recent years. Due to supply-demand imbalances, nickel prices have continued to decline and are currently near the 75th percentile of global nickel mining costs.
However, nickel has recently seen some news that could stimulate price increases. For example, the Indonesian government sanctioned 25 nickel mining companies for environmental reasons, while Indonesia supplies 60% of global nickel supply. Additionally, high-cost pyrometallurgical nickel production, which accounts for 70% of market supply, costs approximately $15,500 per ton, basically in line with current prices, providing strong cost support for nickel prices.
Moreover, with the rapid development of solid-state battery technology, nickel's reversal is getting closer. Data shows that solid-state batteries can achieve energy density of 400Wh/kg, far higher than liquid batteries' 300Wh/kg, and have no explosion or fire safety risks, making them an important development direction for power batteries in future new energy vehicles, low-altitude aircraft, humanoid robots and other fields.
Among these, major global automakers plan to mass-produce solid-state batteries roughly between 2027 and 2030. As nickel is an important raw material for solid-state batteries, once solid-state batteries begin formal commercialization, nickel will also welcome a reversal.
Overall, cobalt prices have already bottomed out and rebounded, while nickel prices, after experiencing prolonged declines, have little further downside space. Supported by these dual positives, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.,Ltd. may continue its "elephant dance."
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