• Gold deliveries to Fidelity Gold Refinery reached 3,951kg in May 2026, the highest monthly figure so far this year and 18.8% above April’s 3,325kg
• ASM deliveries rose 29.9% month-on-month to 2,741kg, confirming a recovery from the early-2026 compression linked to formalisation, compliance changes and delivery incentives
• Zimbabwe needs an average of 4,771kg per month from June to December to meet the 50-tonne 2026 target, meaning the second half must outperform the record second half of 2025

Harare- Gold deliveries to Fidelity Gold Refinery have reached 3,951 kilograms in May 2026, the highest monthly figure recorded in Zimbabwe so far this year and an 18.8% advance from April's 3,325 kilograms. May 2025 delivered 3,542 kilograms, placing May 2026's result 11.5% above the same month last year and confirming that the improvement visible in the monthly data is a genuine structural development rather than a seasonal distortion.

Four signals embedded in the May figure carry analytical weight beyond the headline, and each one tells a materially different story about where Zimbabwe's gold sector is, where it is heading, and what the 50-tonne full-year target will actually require.

The ASM sector delivered 2,741 kilograms in May 2026, a 29.9% month-on-month increase from April's 2,111 kilograms and 7.4% above May 2025's 2,552 kilograms, accounting for 69.4% of the month's total national output. The 29.9% single-month gain is the largest recorded since the formalisation drive accelerated in late 2025, and that characterisation matters analytically because it establishes the policy interventions as directionally effective rather than cosmetically active.

Reading the preceding monthly data in sequence provides the necessary context. Data from Fidelity confirms December 2025 as the highest delivery month at 4,900 kilograms in total, with ASM contributing approximately 3,900 kilograms, the highest artisanal output. The policy changes introduced in early 2026 then compressed the sector's deliveries sharply. March 2026 saw ASM output fall to 1,700 kilograms, and total deliveries drop to 2,900 kilograms, the lowest month in 2026.

April partially recovered to 2,100 kilograms in ASM output and 3,300 kilograms in total. May's 2,741 kilograms of ASM output extends that recovery into a third consecutive month of improvement and is the highest ASM figure since the post-restructuring compression began. May's 2,741 kilograms is nonetheless still approximately 30% below December 2025's 3,900-kilogram ASM peak.

The policy instruments driving the recovery are identifiable. The government's incentive package allows small-scale miners to retain 100% of their foreign currency earnings and earn an additional 5% bonus for every 500 grammes delivered to FGR. The FGR's digital Gold Card system, rolled out progressively through 2026, reduces the friction of formal delivery by enabling real-time payment processing and reducing queue times at buying centres that historically pushed volume toward informal channels when the formal system was congested.

The expanded formalisation programmes at Elvington and Amaveni sites extend geographic coverage to what was previously a spatially concentrated formal buying infrastructure. The combined effect, a 29.9% single-month gain in ASM deliveries, exceeds what incremental participation in a stable system would generate and indicates the policy changes addressed a specific compression of delivery activity rather than gradually building new capacity from a lower structural floor.

On the other hand. large-scale producers delivered 5.23 metric tonnes in the first five months of 2026, up 13.6% from the 4.60 tonnes delivered during the same period in 2025. The segment produced approximately 11.6 tonnes for the whole of 2025, its lowest full-year total since 2023, and the improvement visible in the Jan-May 2026 aggregate is the investment cycle's delayed yield rather than a management response to the current gold price environment.

The production benefits of capital decisions committed two to four years earlier are now appearing in monthly delivery data because the infrastructure built with that capital is operating rather than being commissioned. The Dokwe Gold Project in Matabeleland North, owned by Ariana Resources, hosts proven and probable reserves of 1.13 million ounces and is designed to produce as much as 100,000 ounces annually, equivalent to approximately 3.1 tonnes per year, with commissioning targeted for late 2026 or early 2027. The reopening of Mazowe and Redwing under Namib Minerals adds further LSM capacity to a pipeline that the Jan-May improvement trajectory already confirms is building momentum. If LSM's Jan-May pace of approximately 1.05 tonnes per month annualises consistently, full-year LSM output for 2026 would reach approximately 12.6 tonnes against 2025's 11.6 tonnes, representing the first annual LSM production increase since 2023.

The LSM's relative stability through the early 2026 ASM compression period is the structural observation that the verified monthly data makes most clearly. While ASM fell from 3,900 kilograms in December 2025 to 1,700 kilograms in March 2026, LSM held above 1,100 kilograms across the same period.

The two sectors are driven by sufficiently different operating factors, large mines by capital investment cycles, ore body development, and processing plant throughput, and artisanal miners by seasonal conditions, policy incentives, and buying centre accessibility, that adverse shocks to one do not automatically suppress the other. That independence is what makes a 69/31 ASM-to-LSM delivery ratio a more resilient production structure than a 75/25 ratio whose LSM component cannot hold the floor when ASM contracts.

Meanwhile, ASM's share of May's total deliveries reached 69.4%, compared with April's 63.5%. That shift matters because the sector's structural composition has been one of the most contested dimensions of Zimbabwe's gold story since the formalisation policy intensified from 2022 onward.

At the December 2025 delivery peak of 4,900 kilograms total, ASM was approaching 80% of total deliveries, reflecting both the scale of artisanal participation at its height and the concurrent underperformance of large-scale producers at that point in their investment cycle. The restructuring of early 2026 compressed ASM's absolute output sharply and simultaneously reduced its proportional share, revealing the LSM segment's relative operational resilience during the policy transition period.

May's 69.4% ASM share against LSM's 30.6%, combined with LSM's 13.6% year-on-year volume improvement through May, describes a healthier sector composition than the near-total ASM dominance that characterised the months preceding the 2026 restructuring. The verified monthly data shows the years 2022 through 2024 running at progressively higher total delivery levels, 35.6 tonnes in 2022, 30.2 tonnes in 2023, and 36 tonnes in 2024, with LSM holding consistently between 11.5 and 12.6 tonnes annually while ASM drove the variation.

The 2025 record of 46.73 tonnes was built almost entirely on ASM expansion, with ASM contributing approximately 34.7 tonnes against LSM's 11.6 tonnes. May 2026's more balanced split, if sustained, produces a full-year aggregate that is less dependent on the formalisation policy's ability to maintain peak artisanal engagement simultaneously with favourable seasonal conditions.

Zimbabwe's gold sector delivered a record 46.73 tonnes in 2025. The 2026 target is 50 tonnes. The Jan-May 2026 cumulative stands at 16.6 tonnes across the five months. The remaining 33.4 tonnes required to reach 50 tonnes must be delivered in the seven months from June through December, an average of 4,771 kilograms per month. May's 3,951 kilograms falls 16.2% below that required monthly average.

The historical context for that 4,771 kilogram monthly requirement is the most honest framing of the challenge. In the full 2025, four months exceeded 4,000 kilograms: June at 4,270 kilograms, July at 4,205 kilograms, August at 4,190 kilograms, September at 4,500 kilograms, October at 4,200 kilograms, November at 4,200 kilograms, and December at 4,900 kilograms.

Only December 2025, at 4,900 kilograms, exceeded the 4,771 kilogram monthly average that 2026 requires across seven consecutive months. The June-to-December 2025 period averaged 4,308 kilograms per month, against the 4,771 kilogram average required for the same period in 2026.

The 50-tonne target therefore requires the second half of 2026 to deliver approximately 11% more gold per month than the second half of 2025, which was itself the record half-year in the confirmed production series.

That is achievable in the context of expanding ASM formalisation, new LSM capacity commissioning, and an elevated gold price environment that improves the economics of marginal production. Goldman

Sachs forecasts the gold price to reach USD 4,900 per ounce by end 2026, with FGR taking a conservative planning assumption of USD 4,600 per ounce. At USD 4,600 per ounce, every kilogram delivered to FGR carries an indicative gross value of approximately USD 147,900, placing May's 3,951 kilogram total at an indicative gross export value of approximately USD 584 million.

The 11% improvement required in second-half monthly averages translates directly into approximately USD 478 million in additional export earnings across June to December relative to the second-half 2025 performance. The 50-tonne target is a foreign exchange target whose value at current gold prices is approximately USD 7.4 billion for the full year against 2025's USD 5 billion equivalent.

The ZiG monetary architecture adds a dimension to the delivery story that the production volume discourse does not capture. Every kilogram delivered to FGR and retained in Zimbabwe's gold reserve base directly strengthens the reserve backing ratio that underpins the ZiG's exchange rate credibility. The RBZ's reported gold and foreign currency reserve position of approximately USD 1.4 billion implies a reserve base against which May's 3,951-kilogram monthly delivery, at current spot prices, represents a meaningful monthly increment.

The stability of the ZiG through 2025 and into 2026 reflects both contractionary monetary policy constraining ZiG liquidity supply and the physical gold reserve base that FGR deliveries build month by month, providing the asset backing that makes the ZiG's reserve constraint credible to external investors evaluating Zimbabwe's monetary stability.

May 2026's 3,951 kilogram result is the highest single month of 2026 to date. It is not a series record. Zimbabwe has delivered higher monthly volumes in the second half of 2025, most notably December 2025's 4,900 kilograms and September 2025's 4,500 kilograms.

What May 2026 represents is the clearest available monthly confirmation that the two-sector recovery is accelerating simultaneously in both ASM and LSM, that the policy interventions are producing measurable delivery velocity gains, and that the 50-tonne full-year target remains mathematically achievable.

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