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<\/p>\nGovernment’s ban on the export of lithium concentrates and other raw minerals is beginning to deliver positive results, after its call for value addition and beneficiation, with lithium producers complying with this policy.<\/p>\n
Mines and Mining Development minister Engineer Polite Kambamura during a tour of the Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe mining plant in Goromonzi this Friday.<\/p>\n
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The minister further\u00a0said Government\u00a0is still sticking with the ban on lithium exportation.<\/p>\n
Engineer Kambamura said the government is not going to rest until the country starts producing lithium batteries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are here today to witness a milestone that the company has made for the construction of the first lithium plant, lithium sulfate plant in Africa, behind me, and this one behind me in Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very happy\u00a0as government\u00a0witnessing this milestone under the Second Republic,\u00a0especially government\u00a0called for value addition and beneficiation.<\/p>\n
\u201cProspect Lithium Zimbabwe is a sole lithium sulphate plant owned by China\u2019s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plant has a storage capacity of 50,000\u00a0tonnes of lithium sulphate per annum, and currently they are operating at 60 percent capacity, and we are looking forward to seeing them ramping\u00a0up the production\u00a0efficiency in the first quarter of 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe by then they will be producing 80 percent of the total capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, this is the largest three-line single-phase lithium sulfate plant in Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the company is going further also to build the lithium\u00a0carbonate plant, and currently it\u2019s now at 90 percent in construction.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are looking forward to seeing the completion of these plants in August this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, they will be producing lithium sulphate and then\u00a0lithium carbonate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a good show, especially considering\u00a0that the government\u00a0is not going to rest until you produce the third lithium battery in Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where we are going, so all the salts, talk of lithium sulphate, now we are going to lithium carbonate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next step will be getting lithium batteries in Zimbabwe, so that’s where we are going.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will rest only after we can now produce, or will be able to produce lithium batteries and solar panels.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that’s the trust\u00a0of government\u00a0to produce big products of lithium,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Government’s ban on the export of lithium concentrates and other raw minerals is beginning to deliver positive results, after its call for value addition and beneficiation, with lithium producers complying with this policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1243,1244],"class_list":["post-6066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-zimbabwe","tag-chinas-zhejiang-huayou-cobalt","tag-engineer-polite-kambamura"],"yoast_head":"\n