Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt on Wednesday commissioned a lithium concentrator in Zimbabwe as it seeks to consolidate its position as one of the world’s top battery materials producers.
Source: China’s Huayou commissions $300 mln Zimbabwe lithium plant | Reuters
A worker checks their mobile phone, as Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa commissions the Prospect Lithium mine and processing plant in Goromonzi, Zimbabwe July 5, 2023. REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo
GOROMONZI, Zimbabwe (Reuters) – Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt (603799.SS) on Wednesday commissioned a lithium concentrator in Zimbabwe as it seeks to consolidate its position as one of the world’s top battery materials producers.
Huayou acquired the Arcadia hard rock deposit, 40 kilometres outside Harare, from Australia-listed Prospect Resources (PSC.AX) for $422 million in April 2022. The Chinese company invested a further $300 million to build a plant to produce 450,000 metric tons of lithium concentrates annually.
The Arcadia plant took nine months to construct and started exporting concentrates in April after the plant went into trial production, George Fang, Huayou vice president and chairman of the Zimbabwe unit, said in a speech to mark the commissioning.
“We have exported close to 30,000 metric tons. This equates to $40 million in revenue generation,” Fang said.
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who officiated at the commissioning, said the southern African country hopes its huge hard rock lithium resources will help revive its struggling economy.
“Lithium is a mineral of the present and the future. It is beneficial and will position our country in the global lithium value chain,” Mnangagwa said.
Zimbabwe’s government wants lithium miners operating in the country to go beyond producing lithium concentrates and process battery-grade lithium.
Trevor Barnard, deputy general manager of Huayou’s Zimbabwe unit, said the company was undertaking feasibility studies on further processing.
“We are not at the battery stage yet, it will take a regional approach from quite a few mines coming together to do beneficiation (processing),” Barnard told Reuters.
Chinese firms including Huayou, Sinomine Resource Group (002738.SZ), Chengxin Lithium Group (002240.SZ), Yahua Group (002497.SZ) and Canmax Technologies (300390.SZ) have spent more than $1 billion over the past two years to acquire and develop lithium projects in Zimbabwe.
London-listed Premier African Minerals (PREM.L) has said it will start producing lithium concentrates from its Zulu mine in southern Zimbabwe this year despite a delay caused by a plant defect.
COMMENTS
Yes, all very good news for our Zimbabwe’s economy but have we not heard it all before.
But we must not forget about our diamonds from the Eastern districts that we were all to get rich on and before we knew it, they were all gone and we were left with pennies.
Even our number one thief Mugabe put our loss there at US $ 11 billion.
Will we not be crying again in a few years while those clever guys to the East will again be laughing their teeth out.
We need to encourage our people to vote against ZanuPF or else nothing will change for them . Absolutely nothing. ZanuPF continue to work for their own interests and this can’t be the norm anymore. 43 years of rubbish governance only to be colonised again. The Chinese only care for themselves and have shown no respect for us Africans in general. Nothing good will come out of this alliance very soon. Let’s wait and see.