[SMM Analysis] A New Variable in Zimbabwe’s Lithium Mining

Zimbabwe’s lithium mining sector has a new player: Indian critical minerals company LOHUM has secured rights to 10 spodumene-bearing blocks in Matabeleland South Province, covering about 1,100 hectares, and has already shipped its first batch of lithium ore. The company plans to invest about $100 million and build capacity of about 30,000 tonnes per year of lithium carbonate equivalent within two to three years. According to LOHUM’s own estimate, the first blocks may contain 30 million to 40 million tonnes of ore, but this is not an independently compliant reserve, and the specific coordinates, mining licence numbers, and counterparties have not been disclosed.

What is truly noteworthy is not that “India has acquired a mine,” but that LOHUM wants to build a new lithium supply chain outside China: mining in Zimbabwe → local beneficiation → local production of lithium sulphate → shipment to India for lithium carbonate production → cathode materials → Indian battery, automotive, and energy storage customers. LOHUM is also building a 5,000-tonne-per-year cathode active material plant in Uttar Pradesh, India. This move is backed by India’s National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM), approved in 2025, which explicitly incorporates “acquiring overseas critical mineral assets” into its framework, covering the entire chain from exploration, mining, beneficiation, processing to recycling.

But the first hard threshold LOHUM faces is in 2027. Zimbabwe has continuously tightened its policies on lithium concentrate: in February 2026, it temporarily suspended exports; after resuming exports in April, it switched to a quota management system and required mining companies to submit local processing commitments. From January 2027, Zimbabwe plans to completely ban lithium concentrate exports, requiring mining companies to move into higher value-added segments such as lithium sulphate. Currently, the only operational lithium sulphate plant in the country is Huayou Cobalt’s Arcadia project, with an investment of about $400 million, but the Arcadia concentrator has clearly stated that its existing capacity can only process its own feedstock and cannot accept concentrate from third-party mines. This means LOHUM must build its own beneficiation and lithium sulphate processing system in a very short time, or find new cooperative processing capacity.

The foundation of Chinese investment remains solid. Since 2021, Chinese companies have invested about $2 billion in Zimbabwe’s lithium mining and processing projects. Huayou Cobalt’s Arcadia has formed an integrated operation of mining, beneficiation, and lithium sulphate processing; Sinomine’s Bikita is one of the core producing lithium mines, with a 100,000-tonne-per-year lithium sulphate project under construction; projects such as Chengxin Lithium’s Sabi Star, Yahua Group-related Kamativi, and Tsingshan Group-related Gwanda have also been established. In particular, Gwanda has been connected to the roughly 1,000-kilometre Maputo railway export corridor, and in 2026 the first batch of lithium concentrate was transported by rail to a Mozambican port. LOHUM is also located in Matabeleland South. If its future mining area connects to this corridor, competition will extend beyond mining rights to railway capacity, loading and unloading, and port resources.

In the short term, Chinese companies are not facing production replacement. LOHUM plans about $100 million, while Chinese companies have already invested about $2 billion; the two sides are not at the same stage of development. More noteworthy is that LOHUM has given the Zimbabwean government a new investment option and benchmark: local processing commitments now have a new reference point, competition for mining rights and infrastructure may increase, and in the future there may be new demand for beneficiation equipment, chemical engineering, power, water treatment, and logistics.

Zimbabwe is not “choosing sides between China and India,” but rather raising the threshold for all investors. Investment sources can be more diverse, but more processing, jobs, tax revenue, and infrastructure must be left behind. The next things to watch most closely are: the specific coordinates of LOHUM’s 10 blocks, an independent resource report, the site selection and EIA for the lithium sulphate plant, project financing, and whether it will connect to the Gwanda–Maputo logistics corridor. Once this information is made public, it will be possible to truly judge whether what India has obtained in Zimbabwe is merely 10 mining blocks, or a second lithium supply chain that can actually work.