The ManicaPost
Samuel Kadungure
Senior Reporter
ABOUT US$22 million has so far been injected towards the establishment of a multi-million dollar lithium mine in Buhera – with an additional US$108 million expected to be poured into the project before the beginning of lithium concentrate mining mid-next year.
The project, being spearheaded by Max Mind Zimbabwe (Pvt) Limited, has the capacity to produce 3 000 tonnes of lithium concentrate per day, which translates to about 1 095 000 tonnes per year with an export value of US$200m.
The mining project will also employ 300 local employees.
The first batch of the lithium plant is expected to arrive from China at the end of this month.
Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Honourable Nokhutula Matsikenyere toured the Sabi Star Mine on Tuesday, and said the project will ameliorate economic growth of Manicaland, given its multiplier effects of foreign currency generation through exports, employment creation and contribution to fiscal revenues.
“Manicaland is one of the mining hubs of the country, and the mining sector is expected to play a critical role in the attainment of Vision 2030. In this regard, the mining sector has set a target to generate US$12 billion by 2025 from US$3,2b in 2018.
“To achieve this, Manicaland has taken Max Mind Zimbabwe (Pvt) Limited as one of the main contributors to the attainment of this target in the lithium industry. Government has commended the current progress made to this multi-million dollar lithium processing plant. Construction of this lithium processing plant should not be the end, but the beginning of transforming the lives of the people of Buhera and Manicaland at large,” she said.
Minister Matsikenyere commended the investor for increasing their exploration project since 2018.
“The national aspirations of this country are being guided by the National Development Strategy (NDS1), and one of the national priorities is to increase lithium production. Our Provincial Development Strategy (PDS1) has taken cognisance of this national priority and cascaded it down to Max Mind Zimbabwe (Pvt) Limited to implement this downstream value chain project to increase the Gross Domestic Product of Manicaland.
“Manicaland has a favourable geology and is endowed with a plethora of mineral resources, perhaps, the highest number of minerals any province can boast of. This plant will be utilised to satisfy the local demand as pronounced by President Mnangagwa that Zimbabwe will have an upper middle class economy by 2030. Key to the achievement of this vision is economic growth through innovation in all sectors, and this is one of the typical examples we are seeing today,” she said.
Max Mind Zimbabwe project manager, Mr Elfas Mugova said upon completion, the mine will rack in US$200m per year, thereby boosting the provincial GDP.
The mine has 55 mining claims straddling across 3 800 hectares.
“We have spent US$22m in the work we have done so far, and this includes exploration, feasibility studies and ongoing construction works. By the time we start producing lithium concentrate, we should have injected US$130m. This should be done by the end of the second quarter of 2023.
“By the end of this month, the first batch of the plant equipment will be arriving in the country. Since the construction of the plant is hinged on exploration work done in the last four years where we established a mining lifespan of up to six years, we need to grow that to beyond 20 years. The strategy then is to acquire a lot of land and continuously carry out exploration work to buttress our long term plan to have enough resources to justify construction of the more expensive smelters to purify the lithium concentrate into lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate.
“As we construct the mine, we are also busy setting up teams to continue with exploration work so that we can establish more resources to justify the setting up of the value addition plant,” said Mr Mugova.
Mr Mugova said at least US$250m will be required to set up the value addition and beneficiation plant.
Availability of power infrastructure and human capital will be key to support this kind of set-up.
“You would not want to build a smelter where you will have frequent power cuts. That on its own will affect the operations of the smelter. So we need to have reliable power first to confidently set up a plant of that nature.
“Just from this process of producing lithium concentrate, we had to come up with plans to construct a 12MW thermal power plant to guarantee us uninterrupted power supply to the project,” he said.
Mr Mugova said 40 families have so far been affected by the mining operations and will be relocated this month-end.
“We have built 22 housing units at Murambinda, and we have 17 other housing units in the adjacent villages, and one unit in Mberengwa where the affected family opted to be relocated. We have so far invested US$1,2 million into this process. The affected families will get a monetary compensation of US$1 900 upon taking occupation of their new houses, and then US$150 for six months. We did not want to give them at the stage of signing the agreements because by the time they move on that money would be finished,” he said.
The company is also upgrading roads leading to the mine from Gaza Business Centre and boreholes in adjacent communities to improve water supply.
Secretary for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Mr Edgars Seenza said the mining project addresses the aspect of value addition which was missing from previous ventures.
“We are impressed that they will extract lithium, with tantalite as a by-product. What impressed us most is that they will value-add the lithium concentrate on site. This will grow our economy as a province and have a positive impact on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the district and province at large.
“We implore all those doing business in the extractive sector in Manicaland to also value add as this will indeed grow our GDP. We are producing a number of minerals, but they are being taken to Harare for value-addition without benefiting us, so we are excited with this new arrangement to do the value addition of lithium here in Buhera,” he said.
The Max Mind Zimbabwe Lithium Plant will be the third largest after two sister plants in China, and the same contractor will be in Buhera to assemble it.
The rising demand for environmentally friendly transport is boosting sales of electric vehicles (EVs) and the lithium-ion batteries that power them.
In view of the importance of lithium to the future energy-battery, lithium is now known as the “white oil” and an important mineral, mainly used for the production of lithium batteries and ICT products.
It is an essential component in the production of high-tech equipment and electric vehicle batteries.
According to a recent report from Research and Markets, lithium-ion batteries will reach US$165,8b by 2030, with a 15,3 percent compound annual growth rate. Apart from EVs, another key reason for the rising usage of lithium-ion batteries is the growth in renewable energy production.
Lithium-ion batteries are now used in everything from handheld devices to grid storage.
