The Zimbabwean government has classified lithium, nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements among several other metals as critical minerals, as the country seeks to maximize economic benefits from the global energy transition drive, which includes the booming electric vehicle (EV) industry.
The other minerals declared as critical include manganese, graphite, platinum group metals (PGMs), copper, chrome, antimony, uranium, ruthenium, tungsten and niobium.
“Due to increasing global demand for critical minerals to underpin the energy transition drive and need for the country to strategically plan on its mineral resources, the minerals…have been declared as critical, special critical and strategic minerals,” Mines and Mining Development Minister Polite Kambamura said.
The flourishing EV industry relies on a complex supply chain of these critical minerals, which are primarily used to manufacture high-performance lithium-ion batteries, efficient electric motors, and electrical wiring.
Industry experts say an average EV requires up to six times the mineral inputs of a conventional internal combustion vehicle.
Kambamura – who also listed metallurgical coal under special critical minerals – said the resources were selected based on several criteria: supply chain vulnerability, high international demand where Zimbabwe has production dominance, and their importance as raw materials for local and international manufacturing.
The criteria, he said, also included “minerals with the capacity to generate substantial direct and indirect local employment and national economic benefits and minerals with low occurrences and low grades but of high value”.
“In accordance with the Critical Minerals Development Strategy,” Kambamura said, “the State shall, through designated Special Purpose Vehicles, exercise a mandatory minimum shareholding in the exploitation of these minerals.”
“No person shall export any mineral listed…in its raw or unbeneficiated form unless such export is authorised under a conditional transitional plan approved by the Minister of Mines and Mining Development with a specific timeline for local beneficiation beyond the concentrate stage,” he added.
The Mines Minister further stated that minerals listed shall be exported as per approved government beneficiation levels.
“Applications for mining rights on these minerals shall be by prior approval of the Minister of Mines and Mining Development.”
Kambamura also declared limestone, potash, phosphorus, iron ore, pyrites, oil and gas, coal, gold and diamonds as strategic minerals