Newly commissioned US$300 million lithium plant ha...

Newly commissioned US$300 million lithium plant has already generated US$40 million revenue

Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt’s lithium concentrator in Goromonzi commissioned by President Emmerson Mnangagwa this Wednesday is already in operation.

"We have exported close to 30,000 metric tonnes. This equates to US$40 million in revenue generation," said Huayou vice president and chairman of the Zimbabwe unit George Fang at the commissioning ceremony.

Huayou acquired the Arcadia hard rock deposit, 40 kilometres outside Harare, from Australia-listed Prospect Resources for US$422 million in April 2022.

The Chinese company invested a further US$300 million to build a plant to produce 450,000 metric tonnes 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.

Setting up created about 1 000 direct jobs with more expected as production goes full scale.

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, Chengxin Lithium Group, Yahua Group and Canmax Technologies have spent more than US$1 billion over the past two years to acquire and develop lithium projects in Zimbabwe.

London-listed Premier African Minerals 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.

Prospect Resources has already established itself as responsible corporate citizen through investment into education, health, water, security and road infrastructure projects to uplift the community in which it operates. Zim Now/Reuters