China's Huayou commissions $300 mln Zimbabwe lithium plant

Prospect Resources

05/07/2023 18:46

By Nyasha Chingono
       GOROMONZI, Zimbabwe, July 5 (Reuters) - Zhejiang Huayou
Cobalt  603799.SS  on Wednesday commissioned a lithium
concentrator in Zimbabwe as it seeks to consolidate its position
as one of the world's top battery materials producers.
    Huayou acquired the Arcadia hard rock deposit, 40 kilometres
outside Harare, from Australia-listed Prospect Resources
 PSC.AX  for $422 million in April 2022. The Chinese company
invested a further $300 million to build a plant to produce
450,000 metric tons 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, George Fang, Huayou vice president and chairman of
the Zimbabwe unit, said in a speech to mark the commissioning.
    "We have exported close to 30,000 metric tons. This equates
to $40 million in revenue generation," Fang said.
    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
 002738.SZ , Chengxin Lithium Group  002240.SZ , Yahua Group
 002497.SZ  and Canmax Technologies  300390.SZ  have spent more
than $1 billion over the past two years to acquire and develop
lithium projects in Zimbabwe.
    London-listed Premier African Minerals  PREM.L  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. 

 (Reporting by Nyasha Chingono; Editing by Nelson Banya and
David Holmes)
 ((Nelson.Banya@thomsonreuters.com;))