Expert: African Lithium Key to China's Battery Supply Chain Dominance

Zimbabwe’s rising role in the lithium sector

Zimbabwe in particular has positioned itself at the heart of Africa’s lithium expansion.

Under its Vision 2030 program, introduced in 2018, the country is aiming to transition to an upper- to middle-income economy by building more domestic value from its minerals. As part of this framework, authorities have prioritized increasing value addition and beneficiation of raw materials as a central pillar of economic growth

Zimbabwe's 2022 ban on raw lithium ore exports, coupled with a planned 2027 ban on concentrate exports, is designed to force local upgrading and refining. Chinese-backed operators have already responded to this move, investing in midstream processing facilities that convert lithium ore into more valuable chemicals.

Cook said there were no surprises in Zimbabwe’s 2027 concentrate ban because Zimbabwe’s largest lithium projects — Arcadia and Bikita — had already planned sulfate plants late last year.

Both projects are already dominated by Chinese investors. In fact, Cook said Zimbabwe could soon become the fifth-largest producer of mined lithium globally, with Chinese interests controlling as much as 90 percent of its output.

Despite this surge, Africa’s lithium boom is hardly risk-free. Cook flagged serious challenges in transport, electricity and worker conditions in her presentation at the Fastmarkets conference.

“Local workers often also tend to be within the lower skilled jobs, and unlike the Australian mines, a lot of that work is done manually, which can mean there is an increased risk to personal safety,” she said.

Road bottlenecks and port congestion in countries like South Africa hamper exports, while rolling blackouts push some miners to build their own power infrastructure. However, China’s Belt and Road Initiative is easing some of those pain points, upgrading key transport corridors to keep African lithium flowing.

China pushing to secure lithium supply

Domestically, China is also seeing a shift in how it sources lithium.

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence data shows that brine-based production, once a major source for China, is declining relative to hard rock. By 2035, hard rock will make up the majority of Chinese feedstock.

While the reopening of CATL's (SZSE:300750,HKEX:3750) mine in Jiangxi province this year will help, Cook argued that China is still structurally dependent on Africa and other regions to fill the supply gap.

That dependence, she said, is at the heart of Beijing’s long-term lithium security push. “China is directly investing to secure supply, to get that hard-rock feedstock," she commented.

Future regional lithium players in Africa

While Zimbabwe, along with Mali, is grabbing attention now, Cook forecast that new African lithium suppliers will emerge by 2035, including Ethiopia, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

She also noted potential future lithium supply growth from Rwanda, Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire, even though these countries are still years away from commercial production.

This potential dominance could come with price advantages too.

African lithium projects often have lower upfront costs compared to Australia because of their lower grades and cheaper labor, even though they may face higher impurities and weaker ESG oversight.

“It also means that in terms of pricing, we see that the spodumene price that's coming out of some of these projects is typically around US$20 to US$30 lower than the spot price that you'll see quoted by Newcastle,” Cook noted.

Still, quality issues and chronic underinvestment in African infrastructure could slow progress. Cook emphasized that transport, electricity reliability and governance will determine whether Africa can live up to its lithium promise.