Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
22-01-2025
HARARE: Zimbabwe’s state-owned Kuvimba Mining House expects to finalize this month a deal agreed with two Chinese companies as it sticks with its $270 million lithium project on the basis lithium prices will recover, its CEO said on Monday.
Analysts expect robust sales of electric vehicles (EV) in China and the mothballing of some mines will this year stabilize lithium prices. They have fallen by more than 80% since their November 2022 peak due to oversupply and slower than expected EV sales growth.
CEO Trevor Barnard said Kuvimba expects prices to recover more strongly next year, although they were unlikely to reach the record levels seen in 2022.
“That was obviously a bubble driven by huge demand forecasts and huge positive sentiment around lithium,” he said of the 2022 prices.
Zimbabwe, Africa’s biggest producer of lithium, has attracted more than $1 billion of investment in lithium projects since 2021, mostly from Chinese battery metal companies, company filings show.
Without naming the Chinese investors, Barnard said he expected them to finalize their deal with Kuvimba to build a 600,000 metric tons per year lithium concentrator at Sandawana mine.
“We did a review of the Sandawana project and we found that it is still a very good project to proceed with because of the quality of the resource and the size of the resource as well,” Barnard said.
Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, opens new tab, Sinomine Resource Group, opens new tab, Chengxin Lithium Group, opens new tab, Yahua Group, opens new tab and Canmax, opens new tab are some of the Chinese firms that have acquired lithium assets in Zimbabwe as the Asian country seeks to consolidate its position in the global battery metal value chain.
Zimbabwe’s state-owned Kuvimba Mining House has signed a $310 million deal with a consortium of British and Chinese investors for the construction of a lithium concentrator, the company announced on Thursday.
Kuvimba said in a statement it has signed a binding Build, Operate, and Transfer (BOT) agreement with the consortium for a 3 million metric ton per year ore processing plant at its Sandawana mine, where Rio Tinto, opens new tab, opens new tab mined emeralds for three decades until 1993.
A lithium concentrator, the first stage in processing the metal, crushes and leaches ore to produce saleable concentrates that are further refined into lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide used in batteries. Zimbabwe currently does not refine lithium, but exports concentrates to China for further processing.
The company did not name the investors, only saying they were “leading foreign British and Chinese companies in the global lithium market”. Kuvimba said the build-operate-transfer arrangement would lapse after six years.
The plant is set to be commissioned within 18 months, producing 600,000 metric tons of lithium concentrate annually, Kuvimba said.
Zimbabwe, Africa’s top producer of lithium, which is used in electric vehicle batteries and to store renewable energy, has attracted more than $1 billion investment in lithium projects since 2021, mostly from Chinese battery metal firms, according to company filings.
Some of the Chinese firms with mines in Zimbabwe include Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, opens new tab, Sinomine Resource Group, opens new tab, Chengxin Lithium Group, opens new tab, Canmax Technologies, opens new tab and Yahua Group, opens new tab. (Int’l News Desk)
