Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and in 2025 announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January 2027. But on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector will do in the short term as Zimbabwe currently has no facilities to process lithium concentrates. The move, which also included a blanket ban on export of all raw minerals, aims to capture the added value of refining and processing, thus creating jobs and additional government tax revenue. But critics say the push to refine should have come sooner, with Zimbabwe already having lost out on several years of revenues for the hard-pressed local economy. Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe, owned by Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, has spent $400 million on a processing plant that should be operational in the coming weeks, its representative Patience Chizodza told state broadcaster ZBC. It will reportedly be the first factory in Africa to refine lithium concentrate into lithium sulfate -- a powdered form that is one step closer to the product used in batteries.
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