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HARARE – Zimbabwe’s state-owned Kuwimba Mining Company has announced a $310 million deal with a consortium of British and Chinese investors to build a lithium concentration plant at its Sandavanna mine.
The agreement marks a major step towards increasing the country’s lithium production capacity.
Kuvimba revealed in a statement that it had entered into a binding build, operate and transfer (BOT) agreement with the consortium. The agreement includes the construction of a 3 million tonne per annum ore processing plant at the Sandawana mine, which was previously operated by Rio Tinto to mine emeralds until 1993.
A lithium concentrate plant is the initial stage of lithium processing, crushing the ore and leaching it to produce a marketable concentrate. These concentrates are then further refined into lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide, an essential ingredient in battery manufacturing. Currently, Zimbabwe exports lithium concentrate to China for further processing as the country lacks domestic refining facilities.
While Kuvimba did not name the investors, it described them as “leading British and Chinese foreign companies in the global lithium market.” The BOT agreement expires in six years.
The new plant is expected to be operational within 18 months and produce 600,000 metric tons of lithium concentrate per year. The development comes as Zimbabwe, Africa’s largest lithium producer, continues to attract significant investment into its lithium industry. Since 2021, the country has received more than $1 billion in lithium project investments, mainly from Chinese battery metal companies.
Prominent Chinese companies with mining operations in Zimbabwe include Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine Resources Group, Chengxin Lithium Group, Tianma Technology and Asia Chemical Group. The investments highlight growing global interest in Zimbabwe’s lithium resources, which are vital for electric vehicle batteries and renewable energy storage.
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