• Kavango Resources is pursuing legal action against Simon John Bowman and Romjack Mining for defaulting on the Nara Gold Project acquisition in Zimbabwe
• The company has exercised its option to acquire 100% of the project, but the seller failed to meet the February 2026 deadline
• Kavango will continue with its Hillside Gold Project and Kalahari Copper Belt farm-out process, focusing on gold production and exploration

LSE/AIM/International-Listed Gold Projects in Zimbabwe — March 2026 Overview

Sources: Company RNS announcements, VFEX, GlobalNewswire, Equity Axis.

Harare- Kavango Resources is pursuing all available legal avenues against Simon John Bowman and his operating company Romjack Mining Limited after the seller defaulted on the agreed terms of a Call Option Agreement for the Nara Gold Project in Zimbabwe. The company had exercised its option to acquire 100% of the project, comprising 45 mining claims, in June 2025, with completion originally scheduled for 27 February 2026.

When that deadline passed without the seller fulfilling his obligations, Kavango moved swiftly to protect shareholder interests, announcing it will enforce the contract and seek compensation. The company has confirmed it will provide updates as proceedings develop.

The dispute is an unwelcome complication for a company that has otherwise been building genuine operational momentum in Zimbabwe. But it also arrives at a moment when the country's gold sector is attracting more foreign capital than at any point in recent memory, and when the structural risks of doing business in Zimbabwe's junior mining space deserve scrutiny alongside the opportunity.

To understand what the Nara dispute means, it helps to understand the broader landscape into which it falls.

Kavango's primary operational focus remains the Hillside Gold Project, where the company has been executing against a clear near-term production strategy. Having made four significant gold discoveries across its Zimbabwe greenstone belt portfolio over the past two years, the company raised £2.2 million in September 2025 through a direct subscription and placing , with major shareholder Purebond and chairman Peter Wynter Bee both participating  to accelerate development.

The immediate target is to build and commission 250 tonnes per day of gold mining and processing capacity at Hillside in the near term, with funds also directed toward resource and grade control drilling at the Bill's Luck gold mine and the initiation of a 200 t/d carbon-in-leach processing plant.

The Hillside strategy is explicitly designed to demonstrate something beyond near-term production volumes: that Zimbabwe is a viable, mining-friendly jurisdiction for internationally listed companies.

In the words of CEO Ben Turney at the time of the fundraise, the pilot-scale production would 'prove to the international market that Zimbabwe is open for business.' That framing matters , because the broader investment thesis for Zimbabwe's gold sector rests heavily on the country's ability to deliver on the regulatory and contractual assurances it has been making.

The Nara dispute cuts against that narrative, at least in the short term. Kavango's exposure here is not to the Zimbabwean government or to regulatory risk , it is to a private seller who, having entered a binding call option agreement in June 2023 and accepted its exercise in June 2025, has apparently failed to complete the transfer.

The distinction is important. This is a counterparty failure, not a jurisdiction failure. But in a market where investor confidence is still being built, the two can be difficult to disentangle in perception.

Kavango's difficulties at Nara should be read against a backdrop of significant and accelerating international investment into Zimbabwe's gold sector , much of it from companies with London market listings. The scale of what is now underway is, by any historical measure, remarkable.

The most consequential project in the pipeline is Caledonia Mining Corporation's Bilboes Gold Project. Caledonia published a full feasibility study for Bilboes in November 2025, confirming proven and probable reserves of 1.749 million ounces at 2.26 grams per tonne and a total development capital requirement of $584 million.

Construction is expected to take approximately two years, with initial production targeted for the end of 2028 and a five-month ramp-up to steady-state output of around 200,000 ounces per year from 2029 , which would make it the largest gold mine in Zimbabwe by a considerable margin.

Caledonia has moved quickly to fund this ambition. In January 2026, the company closed a $150 million convertible senior notes offering , upsized from an initial $100 million after investor demand exceeded $600 million , carrying a 5.875% coupon.

Combined with a gold price hedging programme locking in a minimum of $3,500 per ounce on 3,000 ounces per month through December 2028 (to underpin cash generation from its existing Blanket Mine during the peak capital period), an interim bank facility of up to $150 million targeted for mid-2026, and a formal project finance process beginning in Q1 2026, Caledonia has constructed one of the most sophisticated funding architectures seen in the Zimbabwe gold sector.

The investor appetite , six times oversubscribed at the point of upsizing , reflects how seriously institutional capital is taking Zimbabwe's gold potential right now.

Caledonia's existing operations provide important context for the risks Bilboes faces. The Blanket Mine, its producing asset, delivered 76,213 ounces in 2025 in line with guidance. Caledonia's 2026 budget of $162.5 million includes an additional $11 million in potential sustaining capex specifically to address the power problem at Blanket through a long-term grid and generation solution.

While Caledonia advances the most mature development, AIM-listed Ariana Resources holds what is considered the largest undeveloped gold project in Zimbabwe, the Dokwe Gold Project in the Tsholotsho District near Bulawayo. Dokwe comprises two deposits , Dokwe North and Dokwe Central  with a combined in-pit JORC Measured, Indicated and Inferred Resource of over 1.42 million ounces of gold as at March 2025. A 2022 pre-feasibility study estimated annual production of 65,000 ounces over 13 years at a development cost of $82 million.

Ariana's Zimbabwe position is part of a broader multi-jurisdiction strategy that includes gold production in Turkey through a stake in Zenit Madencilik. Dokwe remains pre-development , the gap between pre-feasibility and development decision is where many Zimbabwe projects have historically stalled , but the resource size and relatively low capex estimate make it one of the more compelling development-stage assets in the country.

A different category of opportunity is represented by Namib Minerals, which listed on Nasdaq in June 2025 following a merger and operates the producing How Mine near Bulawayo , which delivered 37,000 ounces in 2024, up 9% year-on-year. More ambitious, however, is the company's stated intention to restart two mines that have been on care and maintenance since 2019, Mazowe, located north of Harare, and Redwing, near the Mozambique border.

The scale of what sits idle at these two assets is striking. Mazowe is estimated to contain 1.2 million ounces at an average grade of 8.4 grams per tonne , a high-grade asset by any global standard. Redwing holds an estimated 2.5 million ounces at 3.07 grams per tonne. Combined, these assets would position Namib as one of the more significant gold producers in the region if successfully restarted.

The company has estimated a restart cost of $300 to $400 million and suggests production could resume within 18 to 24 months of securing the necessary capital. With investor interest on Nasdaq described as strong, and Zimbabwe's gold sector generating $4.6 billion in export receipts in 2025 alone, the commercial logic is clear. The execution risk is equally real.

However, any analysis of Zimbabwe's gold sector must account for the policy environment, which has oscillated between supportive and uncertain with some regularity. The most recent test came in late 2025, when Zimbabwe's 2026 National Budget proposed increasing the gold royalty from 5% to 10% when the gold price exceeded $2,500 per ounce , a move that, had it been implemented as originally proposed, would have been applied to the full price rather than the marginal amount above the threshold. Caledonia's shares fell 14% on the day of the announcement.

The government subsequently revised its position. The enacted Finance Act 2025 confirmed a tiered royalty structure , 3% below $1,200 per ounce, 5% between $1,200 and $5,000, and 10% only above $5,000 per ounce , with other proposed adverse tax changes withdrawn. Caledonia's shares recovered 12% on the revised announcement.

The episode illustrates something important about the current state of doing business in Zimbabwe's gold sector. The government appears genuinely motivated to attract foreign mining investment and has, ultimately, responded to industry concerns on royalty policy.

But the initial proposal , and the market reaction to it , shows that policy risk remains a live variable. Companies operating here must have the financial resilience and the management bandwidth to navigate fiscal uncertainty, not just geological and operational risk.

What the Nara Dispute Tells Us

Returning to Kavango and the Nara dispute, the company's situation is analytically useful because it surfaces a type of risk that receives less attention than geology, capital, or regulation , the risk of private-party counterparty failure in a jurisdiction where enforcement of commercial contracts, while legally possible, can be time-consuming and resource-intensive.

Kavango entered the Call Option Agreement with Simon John Bowman in June 2023 and exercised the option in June 2025, having , by its account , satisfied all the necessary conditions. A subsequent extension to completion was agreed to 27 February 2026. The seller then defaulted. Kavango has confirmed it will pursue "all avenues to protect the interests of its shareholders, including but not limited to enforcing the contract and seeking compensation" against both Bowman personally and through his company Romjack Mining (Private) Limited.

The company has been careful to signal that operational priorities at Hillside and the Kalahari Copper Belt farm-out process will continue regardless.

The strategic logic of that separation is sound. Kavango's value is not contingent on Nara ,  the Hillside discoveries and the broader Zimbabwe greenstone belt portfolio represent the core investment case. But the Nara situation does highlight why due diligence on the private vendor side of Zimbabwe mining transactions , including on the financial capacity and commitment of sellers to complete , deserves as much rigour as technical and geological assessments.

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