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The global electric vehicle battery industry’s growing emphasis on securing raw materials rather than refining capacity is reinforcing Zimbabwe’s strategic position as a lithium producer, even as questions emerge over how its beneficiation drive will interact with shifting global supply dynamics, Mining Zimbabwe can report.

By Ryan Chigoche

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL), which dominates roughly 39.2 per cent of the global EV battery market, says the biggest constraint facing battery manufacturing is no longer processing, but access to mined raw materials.

“Processing is not the bottleneck, but mining is,” CATL Vice President Jiang Li said in a recent interview. “We want to build our cost advantage with our upstream capabilities.”

The comments reflect a broader structural shift in the battery value chain. While China continues to dominate mineral refining, manufacturers are increasingly prioritising direct access to mining assets as price volatility and supply insecurity reshape investment decisions.

CATL has already moved in that direction, planning to establish a dedicated mining unit while bringing in senior advisory expertise from China’s largest metals mining group. Its existing portfolio includes lithium, cobalt and phosphate assets across China and overseas.

The company’s own lithium mine in Jiangxi has experienced disruptions since August 2025, contributing to recent price volatility—a development that appears to be accelerating its upstream push.

Supply Security Is Now Driving Investment

The strategic shift highlights a wider industry reality: supply security, rather than processing efficiency, is now the main driver of investment decisions in the battery sector.

For lithium-rich countries such as Zimbabwe, this trend is significant. It suggests that ownership and control of upstream resources are becoming as important as downstream processing capacity in determining long-term relevance in global battery supply chains.

Zimbabwe has Africa’s largest lithium reserves and has attracted more than US$3.4 billion in mining and processing investments since 2021, largely from Chinese-linked capital seeking long-term supply security.

However, CATL’s comments suggest that future investment decisions may increasingly prioritise stable, scalable mine output over downstream policy frameworks alone.

Beneficiation Strategy Is Validated – But With a Caveat

Zimbabwe’s policy shift toward mineral beneficiation, most notably its ban on the export of unprocessed lithium, aligns with global efforts to move up the value chain.

On paper, this strategy is supported by the global direction of the industry, which is seeking more resilient and geographically diversified supply chains.

However, CATL’s framing introduces an important caveat: while beneficiation is strategically sound, it does not replace the growing importance of mining output itself.

In other words, Zimbabwe’s strategy is validated in principle, but its success depends on whether domestic processing capacity expands fast enough to match rising investor expectations for supply security and volume consistency.

Failure to scale both mining and beneficiation in parallel could risk bottlenecks that undermine the country’s competitiveness in a market where suppliers are increasingly sensitive to supply disruption.

Sodium Batteries Are Not Replacing Lithium Yet

Alongside its upstream mining push, CATL is also advancing sodium-ion batteries as part of its long-term risk management strategy.

However, the company is not signalling a transition away from lithium. Instead, sodium is positioned as a hedge against periods of elevated lithium prices.

“If the price of lithium goes up, then we can make more sodium-ion batteries,” Jiang Li said.

This conditional approach is critical. It confirms that lithium remains the backbone of global battery supply chains, while sodium serves as a complementary technology for specific applications, particularly energy storage and cost-sensitive segments.

For Zimbabwe, this means lithium demand remains structurally intact in the medium term, even if diversification into alternative chemistries gradually increases over time.

Zimbabwe’s Balancing Act

CATL’s upstream strategy underscores a central tension for Zimbabwe: how to balance resource nationalism and beneficiation policies with the need to remain an attractive, reliable supplier of mined lithium.

The country’s policy direction has strengthened its positioning as a value-add hub, but the global shift highlighted by CATL suggests that mine output reliability may ultimately matter just as much as processing capacity.

CATL itself has previously said Zimbabwe’s export restrictions are unlikely to materially disrupt global lithium supply, noting that production is still dominated by Australia, South America and China, while local processing capacity in Zimbabwe continues to expand.

Bank of America Securities has also assessed the impact of Zimbabwe’s policy shift as limited, citing CATL’s ability to pass upstream cost pressures on to consumers.

The broader signal from CATL is clear: the next phase of competition in the battery industry will not only be about refining capacity or chemistry innovation, but about securing stable access to raw materials at scale.

For Zimbabwe, the opportunity is significant—but so is the pressure. The country is increasingly central to the global lithium narrative, yet its long-term position will depend on whether it can simultaneously expand mining output, accelerate beneficiation and maintain investor confidence in a rapidly tightening supply race.

Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe, H.E. Zhou Ding, has outlined a compelling vision for the country’s economic transformation, declaring that Zimbabwe’s future depends not on exporting raw materials but on building domestic industries that process minerals locally, create jobs and develop skills, Mining Zimbabwe can report.

By Rudairo Mapuranga

Addressing delegates at the Zimbabwe-China Investment Symposium in Harare, Ambassador Zhou presented a roadmap that positions the bilateral partnership as a long-term catalyst for industrialisation, value addition and sustainable economic growth in alignment with Zimbabwe’s National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2).

“The future of Zimbabwe lies not only in extracting its natural resources but in processing them locally, creating industries, developing skills and generating sustainable employment,” the Ambassador said.

The remarks come as Chinese investments in Zimbabwe have surpassed the US$10 billion mark, making China the country’s largest source of foreign direct investment. These investments span mining, manufacturing, agriculture, energy, digital infrastructure and other productive sectors, creating nearly one million local jobs while generating hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue annually.

Ambassador Zhou highlighted landmark investments that demonstrate the shift from exporting raw minerals towards building domestic industrial value chains. The Dinson Iron and Steel Plant in Manhize, a US$1.5 billion integrated steelworks, stands as the most potent symbol of this transformation. The plant is already producing over 500,000 tonnes of steel annually, with capacity expected to reach 1.2 million tonnes.

“Sixty percent of this production is exported, directly generating the foreign currency that is the lifeblood of Zimbabwe’s economy,” Ambassador Zhou noted during a recent visit to the facility.

In the lithium sector, Chinese firms have invested more than US$2 billion since 2021. Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe, in partnership with China’s Huayou Cobalt, has invested approximately US$400 million in the Arcadia lithium sulphate plant – Africa’s first such facility – with production scheduled to commence in the first quarter of 2026. Sinomine’s Bikita Minerals has built a lithium sulphate plant valued at approximately US$500 million.

The Palm River Energy Metallurgical Industrial Park, a US$3.6 billion project in Beitbridge, represents another flagship investment, encompassing coking and ferrochrome processing, cement and fertiliser manufacturing, and integrated power generation.

Policy Alignment and Zero-Tariff Opportunity

The Ambassador highlighted the close alignment between China’s Fifteenth Five-Year Plan and Zimbabwe’s NDS2, saying the two countries now have an opportunity to integrate industrial, supply and value chains for mutual economic benefit.

He described China’s decision to grant zero-tariff access to exports from 53 African countries, effective May 1, 2026, as a historic opportunity for Zimbabwean producers. Bilateral trade climbed to a record US$4.4 billion in 2025, representing a 15.2 percent increase from the previous year, with Zimbabwe enjoying a trade surplus of approximately US$740 million.

According to Ambassador Zhou, the preferential trade arrangement would encourage value addition, promote export diversification and support Zimbabwe’s ambition to move beyond exporting raw materials towards supplying higher-value manufactured and processed products.

However, the Ambassador stressed that achieving meaningful industrialisation requires addressing key structural challenges. He identified inadequate electricity supply, transport infrastructure, water systems and railway networks as major constraints slowing industrial growth and increasing production costs.

While acknowledging progress made through Chinese-supported infrastructure projects, including power generation, airport modernisation and telecommunications expansion, he said additional investment in logistics corridors, renewable energy, industrial parks and digital infrastructure remains essential.

He added that Chinese investors are currently developing captive power stations with a combined generation capacity exceeding 1,000 megawatts to support industrial production and ease electricity shortages.

Beyond infrastructure and industry, Ambassador Zhou placed significant emphasis on policy certainty, describing a transparent and predictable business environment as one of the strongest drivers of long-term investment. He welcomed the Government’s commitment to regulatory consistency, saying investor confidence is built on stable policies that allow businesses to plan decades into the future.

Equally important, he said, is fostering a positive investment narrative that reflects the realities of Zimbabwe-China cooperation. The Ambassador warned against misinformation and negative perceptions that discourage investment while reaffirming China’s expectation that all Chinese companies operating in Zimbabwe comply fully with local laws, uphold environmental standards and maintain constructive relationships with host communities.

He further revealed that Chinese enterprises have collectively invested more than US$100 million in corporate social responsibility programmes across Zimbabwe, supporting schools, health facilities, roads, boreholes, vocational training and community development initiatives that directly improve livelihoods.

In an effort to create mercury-free, responsible artisanal mining operations, Magaya Mining is rolling out a nationwide network of carbon-in-leach processing plants while expanding its Gadzema site into Zimbabwe’s largest gold recovery facility, Chief Executive Officer Zweli Lunga said.

By Rudairo Mapuranga

The company’s strategy targets the elimination of mercury use in artisanal and small-scale gold mining, a sector that now delivers more than 75% of Zimbabwe’s gold to Fidelity Gold Refinery but has caused severe environmental damage. According to a 2025 study, 96% of artisanal sites still rely on mercury, releasing over 24 tonnes annually into water systems and contributing to deforestation and biodiversity loss.

“The current mining process, from a small-scale perspective, requires that when a miner mills his material, he recovers gravity gold. To amalgamate that, you use mercury,” Lunga told Mining Zimbabwe during an environmental awareness engagement at the Gadzema site in Chegutu. “But mercury is harmful – its half-life is about 500 years. If it gets into your lungs, it can perforate them. Wherever there is mercury, nothing else can grow. It pollutes water bodies, and the water you drink can kill you – very slowly and silently.”

Lunga said Magaya’s carbon-enriched plants recover gold without mercury.

“When the miner produces his ore, he doesn’t need to use mercury – our plants do the recovery. The gap we need to fill is ball milling. We buy the ore from the artisan, pay them upfront, and run it through ball mills. That way, we don’t need mercury.”

The company currently operates six plants across Zimbabwe, with a seventh opening in Bulawayo within the next two weeks.

“We opened Kwekwe two months back – a 2,000-tonne-a-day plant. We’re opening Bulawayo in the next week or two, another 1,000 tonnes a day. That will bring our total to about seven,” Lunga said.

“Our vision is that wherever there is gold mining in Zimbabwe, our Magaya plants will recover gold for small-scale miners – or any miner whatsoever. That way, we can reduce mercury use to absolute zero.”

In Kwekwe, Lunga noted, all local miners now process through Magaya’s plant, and mercury use there is already declining. Next year, the company plans to expand to Shurugwi, Mhondoro, and Gwanda, eventually covering all gold-producing provinces.

Zimbabwe’s Largest Processing Plant

Lunga said the existing Gadzema plant – rated at 3,500 tonnes per day – is the largest in Mashonaland West and the second-largest in Zimbabwe after the 5,000-tonne Frida plant. An expansion now underway adds another 2,000 tonnes of daily capacity.

“Because of demand, we’ve started to expand. New tanks are coming up, another 2,000-tonne plant. In total, we’re looking at a combined capacity of over 5,500 tonnes per day – that’s more than 120,000 to 130,000 tonnes per month. Larger than the biggest processing plant,” he said.

“Our confidence is that small-scale miners produce at scale. There are many of them, and if they are assisted with loans, infrastructure, and formalisation, they will easily produce 5,000 tonnes. Already, the plant we’re using now is full – that’s why we’re expanding. We’re sitting on a large stockpile. The new plant will take us to the biggest processing plant in Zimbabwe by capacity – and in terms of production as well.”

Taming Violence Through Formalisation

Artisanal mining sites have long been plagued by deadly clashes over claims, theft, and illicit trading. Lunga said Magaya has implemented strict access controls to stabilise operations.

“We put up a fence, have armed guards, and access controls. People are searched – we remove weapons, alcohol, and drugs, which are drivers of violence.”

Long-term, formalisation has been key.

“Once you create an enabling environment for artisanal miners to produce and make money, and once you teach them to treat their shafts as an office, a business, a company, the need for violence goes away. People want to come here, work, and make money for their families – violence takes a back seat.”

The results, Lunga said, have been dramatic.

“When I started here, guys were stabbing and killing each other, including in Chegutu town. This year alone, we’ve had zero mining-related criminality – zero. People no longer have time to kill each other; everybody has time to work and make money.”

Zimbabwe Miners Federation President Henrietta Rushwaya, speaking at the same event, said the artisanal sector contributed 36 tonnes of gold in 2025 and sustains an estimated 1.5 million livelihoods directly and indirectly.

“Thousands of families depend on mining, and our members contribute substantially to national mineral production,” she said.

However, Rushwaya identified access to mining land as “the most significant challenge” facing the sector. With roughly 85% of more than one million ASM operators still unregistered, formalisation remains incomplete. The Government’s proposed Mines and Minerals Bill, gazetted in June 2025, aims to replace the colonial-era 1961 Act and prioritise formalisation, environmental safeguards, and community engagement. ZMF has also introduced a “Gold Card” biometric ID system to bring informal miners into a verifiable national database.

Rushwaya said the sector needs continued attention on finance, equipment, and formal titles to boost productivity.

“We strive to increase productivity and contribute more meaningfully to the country’s national development,” she added.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury, ratified by Zimbabwe in 2019, requires the eventual elimination of mercury use in ASM. Magaya’s mercury-free processing model aligns with that commitment while offering miners a commercially viable alternative.

Lunga said the nationwide expansion will provide miners with a choice.

“Eventually, there won’t be any need for anyone to use mercury. Through our plants, we can reduce mercury use to absolute zero.”

With the Gadzema expansion set to make Magaya the country’s largest processor and a growing network of regional plants, the company is positioning itself at the centre of Zimbabwe’s push for responsible, formalised, and environmentally sustainable artisanal mining.

The Government has moved a step closer to implementing Zimbabwe’s long-awaited Mining Cadastre Management Information System, a digital platform expected to improve transparency in mining title administration, reduce disputes over claims, and strengthen investor confidence in the sector, Mining Zimbabwe can report.

By Ryan Chigoche

Presenting the post-Cabinet briefing on Tuesday, the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Dr. Zhemu Soda, said Cabinet had received an update from the Minister of Mines and Mining Development, Dr. Polite Kambamura, on progress made in rolling out the system.

At the centre of the reform is the digitisation of more than 60,000 mining licences, including Blocks of Claims, Special Grants, Mining Leases, Exclusive Prospecting Orders (EPOs), mining locations, and other permits currently held by the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development.

Once fully operational, the system is expected to modernise the administration of mining rights by shifting from a largely paper-based registry to a computerised platform designed to improve efficiency, transparency, and governance in the allocation of mineral rights.

The reform is also expected to address long-standing challenges in the sector, particularly disputes arising from overlapping mining claims, as well as delays in the processing of applications—issues that have repeatedly been cited as barriers to investment.

In addition, the Government says the new system is aligned with broader efforts to improve the ease of doing business in the mining sector, where secure and predictable mineral tenure remains a key requirement for attracting exploration and long-term capital.

The latest update signals that the cadastre project has now entered its final phase of implementation, marking the most advanced stage yet in the long-running effort to digitise Zimbabwe’s mining title system.

First proposed in 2014, the project has faced repeated delays over the years, largely due to technical constraints and the verification of historical mining title records. However, officials now say the programme has gained momentum and is approaching full deployment.

Progress has already been made on the ground. About 60 percent of the country’s estimated 60,000 mining titles have been uploaded onto the system, allowing mining companies to view and verify their claims ahead of the full rollout.

Government officials say the platform is already partially functional, with mining data being continuously migrated as the system is finalised.

Both the public-facing application portal and the Ministry’s internal back-office processing system are now at an advanced stage of development, forming the core structure of the digital cadastre.

Authorities say earlier technical and operational bottlenecks have largely been resolved following staff training, data verification exercises, and closer coordination within the sector.

While nationwide rollout is still pending, officials say current work is focused on final refinements and system expansion ahead of a targeted full launch by December.

Once fully implemented, the electronic cadastre will replace Zimbabwe’s existing paper-based mining title registry with a digital system built on survey-grade geographic coordinates. The platform is expected to improve security of tenure, speed up licence processing, and create a more transparent and predictable investment environment.

Beyond improving administrative efficiency, the reform is also expected to support the formalisation of the artisanal and small-scale mining sector and strengthen Zimbabwe’s positioning as a competitive destination for mining exploration and long-term investment.