Zimbabwe lithium producers ask for six more months before concentrate ban

Zimbabwe's lithium producers have asked the government to delay its ban on concentrate exports by six months, to June 2027, warning that most of the processing plants the policy depends on will not be finished in time.

The appeal was made by Innocent Rukweza, chairman of the Lithium Producers' Association and chief executive of the state-owned Mutapa Energy Resources, at a mining conference in Victoria Falls, Reuters reported. "We plead that we be given just a little bit of leeway, because the deadline might be a bit tight," Rukweza said, according to Miningmx.

Where the plants stand

Only one lithium sulphate facility, owned by Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt at Arcadia, is complete and exporting chemicals. Sinomine's Bikita Minerals and Sichuan Yahua's Kamativi mine are building plants, while the state-owned Sandawana mine is still studying the feasibility of one. Despite the uncertainty, the industry projects that Zimbabwe could produce 344,000 tonnes of lithium sulphate a year by 2030.

The government has already tightened the regime this year. After halting concentrate exports in February over alleged leakages, it introduced export quotas and a tax on concentrate shipments. The outright ban, first announced for January 2027, is the final step in a sequence that began with a prohibition on raw lithium ore exports in 2022, Business Insider Africa noted.

A test of resolve

The request puts Harare in an awkward position. Ministers have repeatedly said the 2027 date is fixed, and the policy's credibility rests on it. Yet a ban that arrives before plants are ready would strand ore at mine sites and cut foreign earnings from a mineral that has become one of the country's top exports.

Chinese companies have invested about $2 billion in Zimbabwe's lithium sector since 2021 and dominate its output. The country sent 1.13 million tonnes of spodumene concentrate to China in 2025, about 15% of China's imports of the material, so any change in timetable will be watched closely by converters there.

What comes next

The government has not publicly responded to the request. Its likely options are to hold the date and rely on quotas for companies with plants under construction, or to grant a limited extension tied to verified construction milestones. Either way, the second half of 2026 will show whether Bikita and Kamativi can close the gap between Zimbabwe's mining capacity and its processing capacity.

Sources

• Miningmx: Zimbabwe's lithium miners plead for leeway on export ban, 19 Jun 2026
• Business Insider Africa: Africa's top lithium producer faces refinery bottleneck as miners seek more time before export ban, 19 Jun 2026

Photo: Street in the town of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, where the mining conference was held. Bgabel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.