China's Yahua starts building third lithium-sulfate plant in Zimbabwe

China's Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group told investors on 27 February 2026 that it had begun construction of a lithium-sulfate processing plant at its Kamativi joint venture in Zimbabwe, a $200m facility the company expects to bring online in the second quarter of 2027. The plant is the third of its kind being built by a Chinese lithium company in Zimbabwe, following similar sulfate facilities under construction at Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt's Arcadia mine and Sinomine Resource Group's Bikita mine, both larger operations than Yahua's Kamativi project.

Zimbabwe pushes miners up the value chain

The wave of processing investment reflects a deliberate policy push by Zimbabwe's government to phase out exports of raw lithium concentrate in favour of higher-value intermediate products such as lithium sulfate, which commands a premium over unprocessed spodumene and keeps more of the value chain, and associated jobs and tax revenue, inside the country. Zimbabwe has become one of the world's largest sources of hard-rock lithium over the past three years, with Bikita alone forecast to produce 66,500 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent in 2026, making it Africa's largest lithium-producing mine.

A site with mining history

Kamativi itself is not a new mining location: the area was a significant tin-producing district for decades before its lithium-bearing pegmatites drew renewed Chinese investment in recent years. Yahua's decision to build local sulfate capacity there, rather than simply exporting concentrate as earlier operators did, mirrors the approach its larger rivals have taken at Arcadia and Bikita.

What it means for Zimbabwe's lithium boom

Collectively, the three Chinese-built sulfate plants represent well over $1bn of processing investment inside Zimbabwe since 2021, on top of the capital already spent acquiring and developing the underlying mines. With Zimbabwe's government also moving toward export restrictions on unprocessed concentrate, the plants give Chinese lithium companies operating in the country a way to keep exporting profitably once those restrictions take effect, while giving Zimbabwe a larger share of the value generated from its lithium resources than a pure raw-ore export model would provide.

Industry analysts expect at least one more Chinese-backed processing plant to be announced in Zimbabwe before the government's planned concentrate export restrictions take full effect, as remaining lithium miners in the country race to secure local beneficiation capacity rather than risk being shut out of export markets entirely.

Sources

• Bloomberg: China's Yahua Starts Building Lithium Sulfate Plant in Zimbabwe, 27 Feb 2026
• Mining.com: China's Yahua starts building lithium sulfate plant in Zimbabwe, 27 Feb 2026
• Bloomberg: Yahua's Zimbabwe Lithium-Sulfate Plant to Come Online Next Year, 17 Aug 2026

Photo: A mineral specimen from Kamativi in Zimbabwe, once a major tin district and now the site of a lithium mine and processing plant being expanded by China's Sichuan Yahua. Ra'ike (see also: de:Benutzer:Ra'ike), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.