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LISTING on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX) has been a game-changer for Kavango Resources, enabling the London-headquartered mining junior to raise nearly US$14 million, predominantly from local pension funds, as it develops its Hillside gold project in Zimbabwe’s historic Filabusi Greenstone Belt, the company’s Chief Operating Officer has revealed.

By Rudairo Mapuranga

Speaking at the Chamber of Mines Annual Conference Gold Symposium sponsored by Mutapa Gold Resources, Kavango Resources COO and Executive Director Alex Gorman shared the company’s journey from acquiring an existing mine to declaring JORC-compliant resources and tapping into local capital markets.

“Hillside is Kavango’s first 100%-owned gold project in Zimbabwe and the foundation of its broader production strategy in the country,” Gorman said. Located in the Filabusi Greenstone Belt, the project is positioned across a major regional deformation zone typically associated with shear-hosted gold deposits.

From existing mine to JORC resources

Kavango took on Hillside about three years ago, acquiring an existing underground mine and processing centre that had operated on a small scale for approximately 100 years. Since then, the company has completed about 10 kilometres of reverse circulation and diamond drilling, leading to the declaration of two JORC-compliant Mineral Resource Estimates.

In October 2025, Kavango announced a preliminary JORC-compliant resource of 20,000 ounces of gold at the Nightshift Prospect, with 11,000 ounces in the Indicated category and 9,000 ounces in the Inferred category. Then, in February 2026, the company declared a maiden resource of 33,900 ounces at Bill’s Luck Gold Mine, bringing the total JORC-compliant resource at Hillside to 52,900 ounces.

“The JORC MRE reports a total resource of 20,000 ounces of gold at 0.86 grams per tonne,” the company announced at the time.

Artisanal miners as exploration vectors

Gorman highlighted an unconventional but highly effective exploration tool the company has employed — working with artisanal miners operating on their claims.

“What we found particularly helpful is that we have artisanal miners working on our claims, whom we work with and use as an exploration vector,” she said. “These guys know rocks better than geologists. They’re fantastic.”

Kavango has been able to map the artisanal miners’ shafts and link their observations with underground geological data to better understand how the mineralised system is forming in the area.

Gorman suggested this approach could be scaled up nationally. “We have all these pockets of very important information. If you could join all the artisanal knowledge together into some kind of mapping system, that would be extremely interesting,” she said.

The funding challenge and VFEX solution

“For any junior miner, the number one challenge is funding,” Gorman said. “Prior to our VFEX listing, it wasn’t super easy to raise capital for exploration in Zimbabwe from the London markets.”

The company listed on the VFEX by way of introduction in September 2025, with trading commencing on September 8, 2025, while retaining its primary listing on the London Stock Exchange.

“The VFEX listing serves as a secondary venue to broaden investor access, while the company maintains its primary LSE listing,” VFEX Head of Markets Robert Mubaiwa confirmed at the time.

The listing proved hugely successful. Kavango raised just under US$14 million — predominantly from pension funds. Today, the company boasts 16 pension fund investors, several asset managers, and a significant number of retail investors investing anywhere from US$100 to US$10,000.

“We’ve been really pleased that we’ve been able to bring that capital together to help develop what we’re doing at Hillside,” Gorman said.

Building a local investor base

The VFEX listing has opened up Kavango to Zimbabwean investors, who can now hold shares locally, trade them on the VFEX, or transfer them to the LSE through the branch register control account. Key allocations included shares to a consortium of local pension funds, Zimbabwean retail investors, and employee share awards distributed among staff.

Kavango currently produces around 2 kilogrammes of gold per month from small-scale operations at Hillside. The company is now focused on commissioning a 50-tonne-per-day pilot carbon-in-pulp gold processing plant at Bill’s Luck Mine, expected in the second quarter of 2026, with plans to scale up to 250 tonnes per day.

Gorman acknowledged that international investors have had preconceptions about Zimbabwe but said the company is working hard to dispel these alongside other players such as Caledonia.

“Investors are always worried about regulatory uncertainty,” she said. “What we have found is we listed on the VFEX in September of last year, and it has been hugely successful.”

Gorman echoed earlier calls from the Geological Society of Zimbabwe for better regional geological understanding and data accessibility. She noted that Kavango is participating in the East African Exploration Initiative to conduct large-scale mineral systems work.

“You can understand what’s happening at a small scale by first understanding what’s happening at the regional scale, and that is how you will find your large-scale mines,” she said.

The company hopes to reach free cash flow at Hillside and then use that to develop its larger exploration projects through traditional methods, including soil sampling, trenching, and drilling.

The current proven gas in Mzarabani could power a 500-megawatt power station for 1,000 years, according to Paul Chimbodza, founder and managing director of Geo Associates, as the scale of Zimbabwe’s Cabora Bassa Basin discovery begins to sink in, Mining Zimbabwe can report.

By Rudairo Mapuranga

Two wells. Seven kilometres apart. A licence area spanning 360,000 hectares. And according to Chimbodza, speaking at the Chamber of Mines Annual Conference, the project has barely scratched the surface.

“If you just suppose that with a licence area that is 360,000 hectares, what it says is we have barely scratched the surface,” Chimbodza said. “The two wells, Mukuyu 1 and Mukuyu 2, seven kilometres apart, in a licence area as big as this room, we’ve just scratched the corner.”

Independent estimates rank the broader Mukuyu prospect’s potential at up to 20 trillion cubic feet of gas and 845 million barrels of conventional gas condensate, equating to approximately 4.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent on a gross mean unrisked basis.

One trillion cubic feet of gas can power a 500-megawatt power station for 50 years. At 20 Tcf, that same plant could run for 1,000 years.

The broader Cabora Bassa Basin is estimated to hold about 1.38 billion barrels of oil and condensate, worth approximately US$90 billion at current prices. Wood Mackenzie ranked the Mukuyu discovery as sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest petroleum find of 2023.

PROJECT DECADES IN THE MAKING

The Mzarabani project is licensed under Geo Associates, with Invictus Energy – an Australian-listed company – holding 80 percent and One Gas Resources holding the remaining 20 percent.

The initial licence area of 100,000 hectares has since been expanded to 360,000 hectares through collaboration with the Mutapa Investment Fund.

Chimbodza noted that Mobil had explored the area for about 10 years, leaving behind seismic data that Geo Associates has reinterpreted using modern computing power and software.

“That’s all we did with the Mobil data,” he said. “We subjected it to new techniques, new resolution, and we started picking up what Mobil couldn’t pick up then.”

The company has generated more than a dozen drill-ready targets across the licence area. “In our case, we are spoiled for choice on where to drill,” Chimbodza said.

MARKET FINALLY EXISTS

Chimbodza noted that while Mobil had explored the area some 40 years ago, the project was never developed because there was no market for gas at the time.

“If you go back 40 years ago, the gas market was non-existent,” he said. “Even in our homes 40 years ago, no one was using cooking gas. Fast forward to today, there is a huge market, not only in Zimbabwe but in the region.”

REGULATORY BREAKTHROUGH

In May 2026, Invictus Energy signed a Petroleum Production Sharing Agreement with the Zimbabwean Government through Geo Associates, establishing the legal and fiscal framework governing oil and gas exploration, production, and revenue sharing.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube described the Cabora Bassa project as a “strategic national undertaking” capable of reshaping Zimbabwe’s economy through energy security, industrialisation, and employment creation.

The PPSA adopts a hybrid model allowing Government to receive its share either in cash or in petroleum products, using a sliding-scale model tied to project returns.

WHAT COMES NEXT

Invictus plans to commence appraisal activities at the Mukuyu Gas Field in 2026 to delineate the field’s size and reservoir quality. The company is also preparing to drill the Musuma-1 exploration well in the second half of 2026, targeting an estimated 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas and 73 million barrels of condensate.

A pilot gas-to-power project is already in motion, with initial generating capacity set at 12MW and potential expansion to 50MW, supplying electricity to Dallaglio Investments’ Eureka Gold Mine.

The project has also confirmed the presence of highly valuable commercial helium as a secondary by-product.

Two wells drilled. A dozen more targets waiting. A resource that could power a 500-megawatt plant for a millennium. And a regulatory framework now in place.

As Chimbodza put it: “We’ve just scratched the corner.”

ZIMBABWE urgently needs to embrace the Exclusive Prospecting Order (EPO) system to give geologists the room they need to make world-class discoveries, with the country’s last national geological map dating back to 1977 and exploration data lagging far behind regional peers, the Geological Society of Zimbabwe (GSZ) has said.

By Rudairo Mapuranga

Speaking at the Chamber of Mines Annual Conference, GSZ Membership Secretary and Special Programmes Coordinator Gayle Hanssen, a geologist with nearly 40 years of experience, made a passionate case for the EPO system as the foundation for serious mineral exploration.

“You need big ground to look at and you need big information, so that is, of course, our EPO system that the geologists very, very much like,” Hanssen said. “We are definitely advocates for the EPO system.”

Maligreen discovery proves EPO value

Hanssen drew on her personal experience with the discovery of the Maligreen deposit to illustrate why EPOs are essential.

“Having been involved in the discovery of Maligreen, we actually looked at 300 square kilometres and that covered five contiguous EPOs, and we found a one-million-ounce deposit,” she revealed.

“You need a big ground area to narrow down into that and that took us a period of nine years – a full EPO, three plus three plus three. This takes a long period of time.”

She noted that World Bank statistics suggest it takes an average of 12 years to discover a one-million-ounce deposit, meaning even the current EPO system’s maximum six-year term is barely sufficient.

EPOs get recycled, data returns to government

Hanssen explained that exploration is rarely a first-time success.

“The worldwide statistic is that two and a half companies tend to look at the ground prior to discovery. So these EPOs get recycled, and the information goes back into the government resource, which is the Geological Survey of Zimbabwe,” she said.

She described the Geological Survey as the country’s “data repository”, containing “fantastic information, including handwritten reports from the 1890s” – but stressed the urgent need for digitisation.

“We would like it to be a bit more accessible. We need it to be a bit more digital so that people around the world can look at our information,” Hanssen said.

Aeromagnetic data critical for attracting investment

Hanssen recalled how a national aeromagnetic survey at one-kilometre spacing in the 1990s drew significant exploration interest.

“Within about five years of that survey being completed, many companies accessed ground on that,” she said.

However, she warned that Zimbabwe is falling behind its neighbours.

“Zambia, Congo, Namibia, and Angola have or are currently flying their countries at 100 to 300 metres spacing – three times more resolution than what we have in our country – and it makes a phenomenal difference to ground selection,” Hanssen said.

Potential beyond greenstone belts

While acknowledging that most of Zimbabwe’s gold has historically come from the country’s 22 Archean greenstone belts, which have produced over 60 million ounces of gold, Hanssen urged exploration beyond these traditional areas.

“Forbes says our gold is all in the greenstone belts. There’s gold elsewhere in the world, and there are very big discoveries being made in different formations. I do believe that we have potential in those domains as well,” she said.

She noted that Zimbabwe currently has only one one-million-ounce deposit outside the greenstone belts – Renco Mine in the Limpopo Mobile Belt.

Retaining talent, building research capacity

Hanssen raised concerns about brain drain in the geological profession.

“Zimbabwe exports some of the best geologists in Africa, but I also believe that we need to remain current because many of our people are outside the country,” she said.

She pointed to Ghana’s successful industry-funded research and development programme over the past 15 to 20 years as a model Zimbabwe could emulate.

“We need to know the ages of our rocks in Zimbabwe. It’s not necessarily just assays that we go on; it’s many other things for us to understand our geological potential,” Hanssen said.

“We need to see a whole lot more people at doctorate and professor level for our research and development – and those are the people, along with government aeromagnetic projects, that drive investment.”

African capital for African exploration

Hanssen challenged the notion that junior mining companies are solely a Western stock exchange phenomenon.

“Juniors are not a Western stock exchange thing; it’s available risk capital. Even if we talk about juniors, we’re not talking about just the Toronto Stock Exchange, we are talking about African investments in African countries,” she said.

“There’s a lot of money in Africa. I look at the Copperbelt a bit – there’s money up there that’s also looking for gold investment opportunities outside copper investment.”

Her remarks come as the Government moves to review the EPO framework, with the Mines and Minerals Amendment Bill currently before Parliament seeking to address concerns about EPOs and introduce frameworks that enable small-scale miners to be formally recognised.

The GSZ has been at the forefront of advocating for exploration reform, with the society’s 2025 Summer Symposium highlighting how the suspension of EPOs since the early 2000s has stalled new large-scale discoveries, driven skills migration, and fuelled informal mining.

Geo Associates has drilled just two wells across its 360,000-hectare Mzarabani licence, meaning the project’s true potential remains largely untapped, according to founder and managing director Paul Chimbodza.

By Rudairo Mapuranga

Speaking at the Chamber of Mines Annual Conference, Chimbodza said the company’s two wells – Mukuyu 1 and Mukuyu 2 – are located approximately seven kilometres apart, a tiny fraction of the exploration area.

“If you just suppose that with a licence area that is 360,000 hectares, what it says is we have barely scratched the surface,” Chimbodza said.

“The two wells, Mukuyu 1 and Mukuyu 2, seven kilometres apart, in a licence area as big as this room, we’ve just scratched the corner.”

The Mzarabani project is licensed under Geo Associates, with Invictus Energy – an Australian-listed company – holding 80 percent and One Gas Resources holding the remaining 20 percent. Chimbodza clarified the ownership structure to address what he described as “a lot of confusion in the marketplace.”

The initial licence area of 100,000 hectares has since been expanded to 360,000 hectares through collaboration with the Mutapa Investment Fund.

Chimbodza said the company has generated more than a dozen drill-ready targets across the licence area, giving Geo Associates an embarrassment of riches.

“In most exploration projects, the problem is to generate targets that you can follow up for drilling or targets that are worthy of drilling,” he said. “In our case, we are spoiled for choice on where to drill.”

He noted that Mobil had explored the area for about 10 years, leaving behind seismic data that Geo Associates has reinterpreted using modern computing power and software.

“I normally talk of, you know, if you had a scan done in 1980, and then you compare that with an MRI scan today, the resolution is so different,” Chimbodza said. “That’s all we did with the Mobil data. We subjected it to new techniques, new resolution, and we started picking up what Mobil couldn’t pick up then.”

The company subsequently conducted its own seismic survey to validate the findings.

Gas Market Now Exists Where None Did Before

Chimbodza noted that while Mobil had explored the area some 40 years ago, the project was never developed because there was no market for gas at the time.

“If you go back 40 years ago, the gas market was non-existent,” he said. “Even in our homes 40 years ago, no one was using cooking gas.”

“Fast forward to today, there is a huge market, not only in Zimbabwe but in the region.”

He said the project is well-positioned to supply gas-to-power projects, with every country in the region facing power shortages.

Chimbodza framed the resource in stark terms, measuring gas in trillion cubic feet.

“One TCF is big enough to power a 500-megawatt power station for 50 years,” he said.

With infrastructure already available in the region that can be retrofitted, the project could supply power to Zimbabwe’s energy-hungry economy and beyond.

Chimbodza explained that Geo Associates operates under a production-sharing agreement with the government, under which the company explores at its own risk.

“If you don’t find anything, tough luck, because that’s your business,” he said. “If you find something, we will allow you to recoup your costs, plus a small premium… What is left on the table, we then share with the Government of Zimbabwe.”

THERE is abundant capital sloshing around Zimbabwe’s economy waiting to find a home in the mining sector, but a disconnect between available funds and accessible investment opportunities is preventing locals from participating in the country’s mineral wealth, Deputy Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion David Kudakwashe Mnangagwa has said.

By Rudairo Mapuranga

Speaking at the Chamber of Mines Annual Conference in Victoria Falls, the Deputy Minister issued a direct challenge to mining industry players to look beyond traditional offshore financing and aggressively pursue local sources of capital.

“In our estimation, the monies are there, but there is a dissonance between how people can access your mines,” Mnangagwa said. “Every Zimbabwean who is holding cash wants to participate in mining in one manner or the other, but there’s a huge gap in distance. Our capital markets are the only way that we can bridge that gap.”

The Deputy Minister highlighted the recent launch of Zimbabwe’s first gold-backed Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX) as a prime example of how local capital can be mobilised for the mining sector.

“A few weeks ago, we launched our first mutual gold ETF,” Mnangagwa said. “There’s been a call within the room that maybe access to global capital might be diminishing. There’s a lot of capital that is sloshing around within our economy that is failing to find a home and ends up in luxuries.”

The First Mutual Wealth Gold ETF began trading on the VFEX on 8 May 2026 and delivered an impressive debut, surging nearly 40 percent during its first trading session. The ETF opened at an issue price of 10 US cents before closing at 13.94 US cents, with 357,257 units exchanging hands on the opening day.

Mnangagwa said the listing sends “a strategic signal to both local and international investors that Zimbabwe’s financial markets are evolving and becoming increasingly sophisticated”.

Notably, retail investors contributed more than 60 percent of total subscriptions during the ETF’s subscription phase, significantly exceeding the VFEX’s initial public spread target of 30 percent. The minimum investment threshold was set at just US$100, making the product accessible to ordinary Zimbabweans.

“We are trying as government to deepen our financial sector through the creation of instruments that will allow investment, even from our locals,” Mnangagwa said. “We’d like to make sure that we build a homegrown and competitive industry to make sure that the synergies that are there are fully capitalised.”

Policy Openness to Industry Input

The Deputy Minister also addressed concerns raised by outgoing Chamber of Mines President John Musekiwa regarding the royalty framework, which Musekiwa had described as potentially suboptimal.

“I’m not entirely sure, but we always invite players to sit down with the Ministry of Finance and we go through your financial modelling,” Mnangagwa said. “We like financial modelling so that policy is informed by numbers and facts, not by perception.”

He extended an open invitation to the industry: “If, as an industry, there is a widespread feeling that the framework in place is not effective, our doors are always open.”

The Deputy Minister noted that over the past five years, the mining sector has recorded robust and sustained performance, with average growth estimated at around 9 percent annually. The PGM sector remains one of the most important export sectors, contributing significantly to foreign currency earnings.

He reaffirmed government’s commitment to maintaining Zimbabwe’s attractiveness as a competitive mining investment destination while ensuring the country derives fair, sustainable value from its finite mineral resources.

The mining sector continues to benefit from various tax incentives, including accelerated depreciation of capital assets, indefinite carry-forward of losses, 0 percent customs duty on imported capital equipment, and deferment of VAT for up to three years on projects with longer gestation periods.

On foreign exchange, Mnangagwa acknowledged delays in the payment of surrender portions of export proceeds, an issue raised by the outgoing Chamber president.

“I believe something has been happening in the last few weeks. If it hasn’t been happening as we’ve been briefed, then we need to continue discussing that,” he said.

Under the current framework, mining exporters retain 70 percent of their export proceeds in foreign currency, with the remaining 30 percent surrendered to formal foreign exchange markets at the prevailing official exchange rate.

The Deputy Minister emphasised that the future of Zimbabwe’s mining sector lies not only in extraction but also in downstream processing, refining and industrial development, particularly in strategic minerals such as PGMs and lithium.

“Beneficiation investments require substantial capital, advanced technologies, and long-term financing arrangements,” he said. “Government remains committed to continuously strengthening policy frameworks that support value addition and maximise domestic value retention.”

The conference, running under the theme “Unlock Value, Maximise Benefits, Sustain Growth”, brought together mining executives, investors, policymakers and industry suppliers at a time when the sector has become the country’s strongest lever for economic growth and foreign currency generation.

“As government advances the beneficiation and value addition agenda, the alignment between fiscal policy and foreign exchange policy becomes increasingly important,” Mnangagwa said.

Zimbabwe’s Mines and Mining Development Minister Dr Polite Kambamura has declared a renewed offensive against the illicit export of gold, lithium and diamonds, vowing that the government will pursue traffickers with relentless force as the country moves to plug a leak that has cost it billions in lost revenue, Mining Zimbabwe can report.

By Ryan Chigoche

Speaking at the just-concluded Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe Annual General Meeting and Conference, Dr Kambamura said mineral leakages are bleeding the economy of critical foreign currency, state revenue and jobs.

“We remain uncompromising in combating gold leakages and smuggling. Every gram of gold lost through illicit channels represents lost foreign currency, lost revenue and lost national development opportunities,” he said. “A tonne of lithium smuggled out of the country, a carat of diamond exported illicitly — that is revenue lost and jobs exported.”

The minister’s tough stance follows persistent concerns over illicit flows in the extractive sector. The Centre for Natural Resource Governance has estimated that up to 36 tonnes of gold could be smuggled out of Zimbabwe annually, more than half of official production at the time.

Investigators have described Zimbabwe’s mineral leakages as “industrial-scale looting”, involving “a complex web of criminal syndicates, state-embedded actors and private-sector entities”, according to a 2025 report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime. “Non-renewable resource crimes are among Zimbabwe’s most profitable illicit markets,” the report added.

Lithium smuggling networks exploit porous borders through mislabelled shipments, forged customs documents and bribes paid to border officials. In one case, a truck driver carrying a sealed container he believed held chrome was impounded after inspectors discovered raw lithium inside — an illegal export under Zimbabwean law. Officials sometimes lack the geological expertise to identify lithium ores, creating gaps that are easily exploited by exporters.

Investigative journalists have played a pivotal role in exposing smuggling networks. In April 2025, an undercover investigation by Oxpeckers uncovered a transnational lithium smuggling ring moving ore through South Africa and Mozambique, revealing how “majors” (local fixers) and compromised border guards facilitated the illicit trade.

The investigation also highlighted a startling anomaly. South Africa, which has minimal domestic lithium production, suddenly recorded a 147,000-tonne surge in lithium ore exports to China in 2024, pointing directly to Zimbabwe as the source.

Against this backdrop, Kambamura said cracking down on smuggling is the critical first step towards safeguarding Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth and warned that the government would not compromise in its efforts to stem the outflow of unprocessed minerals.

Zimbabwe is estimated to lose up to US$15 billion annually through illicit financial flows (IFFs), with gold and precious stones identified as major drivers.

These outflows exceed the government’s entire US$12 billion mining sector target, underscoring the devastating economic impact of smuggling.

“It is looting at an industrial scale,” said Farai Maguwu, executive director of the Centre for Natural Resource Governance.

Despite government pledges and a raft of policy interventions, including a ban on raw lithium exports, smuggling networks continue to exploit weak enforcement, official complicity and porous borders.

The scale of losses has led observers to warn that, without genuine institutional reform, Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth will continue to enrich foreign markets and criminal syndicates rather than its own citizens.

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