Online Reporter
EXPORTS from minerals, excluding gold, rose 84 percent in the first half of this year to US$2,532 million with gold exports likely to have added almost as much, making mining easily the largest single export earner for Zimbabwe.
The record mineral exports also ensure that the country raises enough foreign currency to buy essential imports.
Some of this jump in mineral export value comes from rising production and some from better global pricing for minerals.
But already, implementation of Government policies to increase mineral value through local beneficiation and refining are adding to the value.
This local processing is now growing fast as miners invest in local processing and new plants are commissioned.
In some cases, a mineral can be tripled in value by this local processing, although the gains are usually a little lower.
Minerals processed to a level where a foreign factory or user can simply accept delivery at the factory gate are generally far more stable in price and while prices do move up and down according to global supply and demand, the fluctuations are far less extreme than for raw mineral ores or even concentrated ores.
More and more of future rises in the value of mineral exports will thus be built on local beneficiation, a core Government policy to extract maximum value from our mineral wealth while at the same time creating decent jobs and building up downstream industries.
Already, all iron exports are in the form of steel, all coal exports in the form of coke, all chrome exports in the form of ferrochrome. Platinum group metals, the second most valuable mineral export after gold, are already in the intermediate stage of mattes of high concentrated metals, adding a lot of local value.
There are definite plans being implemented to move to final refining and separation of the closely related metals that make up this group and which are found together in ore bodies, with platinum predominating, but several other metals such as palladium, rhodium and osmium adding some extra value.
Lithium, in third place after gold and platinum group metals, is still largely exported as spodumene concentrates.
Spodumene, a lithium aluminium silicate, is the common lithium mineral found in granites and thus is the main Zimbabwean source and the large deposits are what have pushed Zimbabwe to the top of African lithium producers.
Already, the first mining company to complete a local processing plant is exporting lithium sulphate, not concentrated lithium ores. In April this year, Zimbabwe dispatched Africa’s first-ever export consignment of lithium sulphate from the newly commissioned US$400 million Prospect Lithium facility in Goromonzi.
Other major producers are building similar plants that start coming on stream from the end of this year although the next big surge in lithium sulphate exports comes in 2028 when exports of this middle level product will more than double this year’s exports, as lithium ore exports fall very sharply.
There will probably always be a market for some spodumene exports, especially if we track down gem-grade deposits, as certain processes need the actual mineral, but the overwhelming bulk of lithium exports by 2030 will be as salts.
Already we have reached the stage where gold ore, platinum ore and chrome ore exports are zero.
A second stage of plants will be needed to move from lithium sulphate to lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide and so completing the local beneficiation, although most of the extra value comes from the sulphate stages.
As industrialisation proceeds, some of our mineral exports will start falling. It is likely that Zimbabwe will export far more of ferrochrome and nickel as more valuable stainless steels, as the major steelworks expands into specialised products.
In time lithium exports, even of highly-processed salts, will fall as we start making and exporting lithium-ion batteries.
While Zimbabwe will always be a mineral exporter, as we are a small country with huge mineral wealth, the shift to making things locally from those minerals and exporting the manufactured products instead will see a fall in mineral exports and a far sharper rise in manufactured exports.
Minerals will still, at this stage, drive exports but the statistics will more and more start showing mineral exports in the manufactured products export column.
In fact, a proper industrial base for Zimbabwe is to use our local resources to make goods, exporting manufactured metal and agricultural products, everything from roof sheets, steel plate and batteries to cigarettes and cotton textiles, rather than shipping minerals and raw products from the farms.
