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Bikita Minerals is pushing ahead with plans to commission Zimbabwe’s largest lithium sulphate processing plant this year, a US$400 million project that will cement the country’s position as Africa’s leading lithium producer and redefine its role in the global electric vehicle supply chain.

By Rudairo Mapuranga

The plant, which is being developed by the Sinomine Resource Group subsidiary, is targeting an annual output of 100,000 tonnes of lithium sulphate once fully ramped up. This capacity will make it the single largest lithium sulphate facility in Africa, surpassing the 50,000- to 60,000-tonne plant recently commissioned by Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe at Arcadia.

Sinomine Resource Group Chairman Wang Pingwei recently confirmed to President Emmerson Mnangagwa that the company is “going all out” to complete the 100,000-tonne-per-year lithium sulphate plant, describing it as “the largest lithium salt plant currently planned in Africa”. The facility will make a significant contribution to extending Zimbabwe’s lithium value chain.

The project is being delivered in phases, with the first phase targeting commissioning this year (2026). Preliminary and site works are already underway, with the company confirming that the project is no longer a plan on paper but “steel going into the ground”.

Bikita Minerals Deputy General Manager Amanda Makausi said the company is not waiting for the government’s January 2027 deadline banning all exports of unprocessed lithium.

“The question was never whether to invest in Zimbabwe. It was how quickly we could stop exporting our value and start building it,” Makausi said.

For decades, Bikita Minerals mined rock, processed it to a concentrate level, and shipped it abroad, with the real value—refining, chemistry, and jobs, created elsewhere. The new plant changes that, transforming Bikita from a concentrate exporter into a producer of battery-precursor chemicals and keeping that value inside Zimbabwe.

Lithium sulphate is a high-value intermediate product that feeds directly into the lithium carbonate and hydroxide used to power electric vehicles. By producing it domestically, Zimbabwe moves up the value chain from being a supplier at the very bottom to a participant in the stages where value is actually created.

The project rests on a formidable ore body. Bikita’s lithium resources have grown to more than 113 million tonnes, containing 1.17 million tonnes of lithium oxide at 1.03% Li₂O (equivalent to 2.88 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent). The deposit is one of Africa’s largest spodumene and petalite resources.

Sinomine acquired Bikita in February 2022, and the asset has since become a key pillar in the group’s global lithium strategy. The parent company is now seeking to raise up to US$764 million to expand African lithium and copper projects, with Zimbabwe central to those ambitions.

Zimbabwe is already Africa’s largest lithium producer and holds the world’s sixth-largest lithium reserves. Makausi identified several factors that make the country competitive for advanced processing: world-class grade and scale, the advantage of processing at the mine rather than shipping rock across oceans, improving power infrastructure (including solar generation and the Tokwe–Bikita power line), a capable workforce, and a government beneficiation policy that offers investors a stable horizon.

The energy infrastructure is being reinforced. Sinomine has installed a new 132kV power line linking Bikita to Masvingo, Nyika, and Zaka, and is constructing a 20MW solar project to future-proof operations.

The project is being built ahead of Zimbabwe’s January 2027 deadline banning all exports of unprocessed lithium. The government has insisted it will stick to that timeline despite pleas from other producers for an extension. Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube has said companies unable to build their own processing capacity can sign tolling agreements with those that have it, naming Bikita Minerals as one of the two companies expected to provide sufficient processing capacity.

Currently, among Zimbabwe’s seven major lithium producers, only Huayou Cobalt’s Prospect Lithium has completed and commissioned a lithium sulphate plant and achieved product shipments. Bikita Minerals and Kamativi are still under construction.

Bikita Minerals currently employs nearly 1,500 direct workers and supports thousands of indirect livelihoods. Once operational, the lithium sulphate plant will significantly boost export revenues and create additional jobs.

The company has also invested in a caesium flotation plant, the first facility globally dedicated to recovering low-grade caesium ores, alongside further investment in a tantalite processing facility. A US$3 million tantalite plant will reprocess more than 1.4 million tonnes of historic tailings annually.

“For a century, the world came to Africa for raw materials and left with the value. This plant is part of rewriting that narrative,” Makausi said.

With Zimbabwe’s lithium industry projected to reach a peak turnover of US$3.2 billion by 2030 from lithium sulphate production alone, and miners committing up to US$5 billion in new investment, Bikita’s US$400 million investment is a cornerstone of a broader transformation.

The question for other large lithium producers is now unavoidable: Where is your processing plant? By January 2027, no raw rock will leave Zimbabwe, only processed salts. Bikita is already building its answer.

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.