• Government says new mines must identify, separate and process minerals at source
• Lithium processing growth has yet to create shared capacity for all producers
• Power, processing infrastructure and licensing rules determine policy delivery

Harare— Government will no longer approve single-mineral mining operations, with new investments required to identify, separate and process multiple minerals contained in ore deposits at source, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga said at the Zimbabwe-China Business Forum in Hangzhou.

Chiwenga said the approach would retain more value from Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth by requiring investors to bring equipment capable of processing the different mineral components in a deposit. The Special Economic Zones and industrial parks would support mineral processing, manufacturing and the development of upstream and downstream value chains.

Zimbabwe’s mineral base includes lithium, nickel, graphite, manganese, cobalt, copper, chrome, platinum-group metals and rare earths. The policy places those resources within a wider value-addition programme that has already tightened conditions around mineral exports and encouraged local processing investment.

The move carries a wider implication for mine development, a mining project can be designed around one commodity, with associated metals and minerals left in lower-grade material, tailings or processing residue. Government now wants investors to assess the full mineral content of an ore body and establish whether more of it can be recovered and processed locally.

That requires a clear separation between three stages of value addition. A mineral must first be identified through drilling, sampling, assays and mineralogical testing. It must then be recoverable through a processing route that achieves commercially viable grades and volumes. A recovered product must have a domestic plant, dependable utilities and a market that can absorb it at a price that supports the investment.

The presence of a mineral in a deposit does not by itself establish a viable product stream. Recovery depends on grade, mineral composition, metallurgy, plant design, reagent use, power requirements, waste management and the scale of available feedstock. A copper deposit may contain cobalt. A nickel deposit may contain cobalt or platinum-group metals. A platinum operation may recover several metals through one concentrator and refinery system. Each ore body requires its own recovery studies and processing flowsheet.

The policy has therefore placed mineralogy and metallurgy closer to the centre of mining-right approvals. Investors seeking new ground would need to show more than the extraction plan for the primary mineral. They would also need to establish the mineral components present in the deposit, the recovery potential of those components and the route through which additional products reach a domestic processor or export market.

Lithium provides the clearest current reference point. Zimbabwe exported about 1.13 million tonnes of spodumene concentrate to China in 2025, earning about US$514 million. The concentrate trade established Zimbabwe as a major supplier of raw material to the battery supply chain, while a large share of chemical conversion remained outside the country.

Government has responded through export controls, compliance requirements and processing deadlines. The February suspension of raw-mineral and lithium-concentrate exports was followed by a quota-based resumption for lithium producers that met conditions set by the authorities. The January 2027 concentrate-export ban remains the next policy deadline for the sector.

Lithium concentrate exports reached 816,774 tonnes worth US$1.247 billion between January and August 2026. Lithium-sulphate exports reached about US$99.5 million between April and July after the commissioning of the US$400 million Arcadia plant, which has annual capacity of 50,000 tonnes.

The new plant has established a domestic chemical-processing route, although its feedstock is tied to the Arcadia operation. The wider industry does not yet have a proven network of common-user plants able to receive and process material from every producer. That constraint matters for new mines and smaller operations that may lack the scale, capital and technical capacity to build dedicated chemical plants.

Chiwenga’s requirement extends that capacity question beyond lithium. A large integrated mining project can build its own concentrator, smelter, refinery or chemical plant where the ore body, capital budget and long-term buyers support the investment. A smaller mine may hold additional recoverable minerals without enough feedstock to finance a standalone circuit. Shared plants, toll-treatment agreements and mineral-specific industrial hubs would provide an alternative route for such projects.

This is where Special Economic Zones and industrial parks become central to the policy rather than supporting features. A processing cluster needs stable electricity, water, laboratories, chemical supply, waste facilities, transport links, skilled metallurgical staff and customers. It also needs enough mine production to keep the plant operating at a commercially efficient utilisation rate.

Electricity remains an immediate constraint. The World Bank estimates that Zimbabwe’s power shortages cost the economy around 6.1% of gross domestic product annually. More than half of firms experienced electrical outages in 2025. Processing moves from crushing and concentration into energy-intensive separation, hydrometallurgy, smelting and refining. Each additional stage places a larger demand on reliable power and specialised industrial inputs.

Government’s policy architecture already includes prescribed beneficiation levels for exports, ministerial approval requirements for mining-right applications and plans for mineral-testing and valuation centres. Chiwenga’s statement would expand this framework by bringing associated-mineral recovery into the earliest stage of project approval.

The next administrative task is to convert the announcement into definitions that investors, lenders and regulators can apply consistently. Government needs to specify which minerals require identification, which associated components require recovery where they are economic and which products must undergo local processing before export. The framework also needs rules for independent processors, existing mines, mine expansions, small-scale producers and by-products that carry recovery costs above their commercial value.

These details carry direct financing implications. Banks and equity partners assess mining projects through the capital required to reach production, expected recovery rates, operating costs, product specifications, price exposure, transport, customer contracts and the period required to repay the investment. A requirement for wider mineral recovery raises capital expenditure and technical complexity where it adds circuits, storage, laboratory work, reagents, power supply and environmental controls.

The commercial case strengthens where the additional product stream has a stable recovery profile, sufficient scale and a contracted market. It weakens where associated minerals require a separate high-cost plant or face limited buyer demand. Mining licences and export permits need enough flexibility to accommodate these differences across ore bodies while preserving Government’s objective of reducing value leakage.

Chiwenga applied the same principle to agriculture, using tobacco as an example of a sector that produces large volumes while exporting most of its output as raw leaf. Cutting, blending, manufacturing and packaging require equipment, brands, distribution networks, regulatory approvals and access to end markets. The mineral policy faces a comparable challenge: domestic processing creates value when industrial capacity reaches the buyer rather than stopping at a new facility.

The first evidence of implementation will sit in the legal instrument or mining guideline that follows the Hangzhou announcement. Markets will then track mineral-specific recovery standards, approved processing projects, commissioned capacity, third-party access to plants, power arrangements, project funding and the value of refined exports relative to concentrate exports. Those measures will show whether the new approval standard is building an integrated mining base or adding a further threshold to investment decisions.

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