Bravura expects to begin Zimbabwe lithium production in 2025

Bravura Holdings Ltd. – a firm owned by Nigerian tycoon Benedict Peters – plans to start production at a Zimbabwean lithium project early next year, a company official said.

The miner remains committed to commissioning the Kamativi lithium tailings project in 2025 despite the weak price of the battery metal, Bravura’s group general manager, Gbenga Ojo, told reporters on Tuesday.

Lithium has emerged as a linchpin of the energy transition, but prices have crashed about 80% from the peak of a boom in 2022 amid oversupply.

The current market will not impact Bravura’s plans.

“We are so confident about it,” Ojo said in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. “Even if it remains like this, we will go ahead with our project.”

Ojo said the plant Bravura is developing will be able to produce an annual 30,000 tons of spodumene concentrate – a lithium-bearing mineral – by reprocessing waste material left behind by a tin mine which closed down three decades ago. The Zimbabwean government is a minority partner in the project, holding a 40% stake.

Bravura’s owner Peters is better known in the oil and gas sector through his Aiteo Group which operates a large oil block in his native Nigeria.

(By Godfrey Marawanyika)