...when I posted awhile back last year that African lithium would get more dominant, lithium hodlers never wanted to believe it, citing that African lithium's quality is crap and no comparison to Australia.
...this despite that fact that Chinese companies had spent billions developing those mines.
...and one thing for sure- African lithium can be produced much cheaper than ours and they are owned by Chinese companies which supply to the Chinese EV battery and EV makers which dominate global market share today.
...so where are we selling our lithium to?
> China? They have their own sources and access to cheap supplies. Do we want to supply them at those prices?
> USA? Too far, and they're developing their own, large supply waiting to be onstream soon & Canada is closer to US than Australia
> EU? Maybe, but their largest prospective EV battery maker just died, and EVs are probably coming from China or via JVs in EU
> India? Good luck, they won't pay any more than what the Chinese are paying
In 2024, Zimbabwe nearly doubled the production of #lithium from the year before in 2023. According to the latest estimates from S&P Global Market Intelligence, Zimbabwe produced around 122,000 metric tonnes of mined lithium material in 2024.
Who is aiming to do do the heavy lifting as the country pushes forward into downstream processing?
•Bikita Minerals@Bikita_Minerals [owned by China's Sinomine].
•Prospect #lithium [Owned by Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt].
These facilities will be "crucial for the country's ability to meet its 2027 export restriction timeline, while maintaining revenue flows from #lithium sales." - Mines and Mining Development Minister Winston Chitando
Below is a chart showing the increase of supply of raw material from Africa.
It will be interesting to see how #Zimbabwe makes the transition into downstream processing.
