Zimbabwe spodumene exports up 11% in 2025, revenue flat on soft prices

Zimbabwe’s exports of lithium-bearing spodumene concentrate rose by 11% in 2025, but weaker global prices for the battery metal kept export revenue flat, official data showed on Tuesday.

Spodumene exports totalled 1.128 million metric tons in the year ended December 2025 against 1.014 million tons the year before, the state’s Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe said in a statement.

Africa’s top lithium producer Zimbabwe generated $513.8 million in spodumene export sales last year, marginally lower than $514.5 million the previous year due to softer prices.

The industry has struggled with oversupply of the metal used in battery storage, resulting in a price slump since late 2022.

Lithium prices have however rallied since the second half of 2025, with a boom in battery storage mainly driven by China’s power sector reforms bolstering the demand outlook for the metal in 2026.

Prices of hard rock spodumene have rebounded above $2,000 a ton since the beginning of 2026, from four-year lows near $610 a ton in June 2025. The mineral remains well below its 2022 peaks above $6,000.

Lithium has become one of Zimbabwe’s major mineral exports, alongside gold, platinum group metals, ferrochrome and chrome.

The southern African country has rapidly expanded spodumene output in recent years following significant investment by Chinese mining firms including Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine, Chengxin Lithium Group and Yahua.

Most of the concentrate is exported to China for further processing into battery-grade materials, but Zimbabwe will ban the export of lithium concentrates from 2027 as it strives for more local processing.

Huayou recently built a $400 million plant to further process lithium concentrates into lithium sulphate, an intermediate product which can be refined into a battery-grade material such as lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate.

(By Chris Takudzwa Muronzi; Editing by Nelson Banya and Jan Harvey)