Zimbabwe earned $2.16 billion from lithium exports in the nine months to September, nearly four times what it earned from lithium during the whole of last year.
The surge was largely driven by a 283% jump in the price of spodumene concentrate, the main lithium-bearing mineral exported from Zimbabwe.
Spodumene accounted for about $1.8 billion of the earnings, while petalite contributed $155 million and lithium sulphate, a processed lithium chemical added another $190 million.
The numbers are significant because lithium has now overtaken platinum group metals (PGMs) as Zimbabwe’s largest mineral export after gold. PGM sales stood at about $1.73 billion over the same period.
What Zimbabwe is Doing with Lithium
The country is trying to move away from simply digging up lithium and shipping it overseas. In April, China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt began exporting lithium sulphate from a $400 million processing plant in Zimbabwe, a move that gives the country a foothold further up the battery-materials value chain.
Lithium is a critical input for electric vehicles, batteries and energy-storage systems, making Zimbabwe increasingly relevant to the global race for critical minerals.
The opportunity comes with a warning
Most of Zimbabwe’s lithium still goes to China, where Chinese companies have invested roughly $2 billion in the country’s lithium sector since 2021.
And lithium prices can move sharply in either direction. A strong export year therefore does not automatically guarantee long-term prosperity.
Zimbabwe’s challenge now is to turn today’s price-driven windfall into lasting industrial capacity more processing, more local jobs and a larger share of the battery value chain.
The government is already moving in that direction, with a ban on lithium concentrate exports scheduled for January 2027, designed to push producers toward greater local processing.