HARARE - Zimbabwe holds Africa's largest lithium reserves, the fifth-largest globally, with its province of Masvingo home to the Bikita mine - site of the world's largest-known deposit of the metal at around 11 million tonnes.
The resource, however, has remained largely untapped for decades due to a lack of investment.
But the growing global demand for electric vehicles has seen Bikita and other Zimbabwean mines attract more Chinese companies in recent years, turning the southern African nation into China's next frontier for the key EV battery component.
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In February, state-run China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group announced it would acquire a lithium project in Zimbabwe, the latest Chinese giant to make multimillion dollar acquisitions to secure Lithium supplies in the worldwide race to go green.
Sinomine Resource Group (Sinomine), a China Nonferrous subsidiary, paid US$180 million to acquire full control of two privately held companies that jointly owned 74 per cent of Bikita Minerals, the country's oldest lithium producer.
The Bikita mine initially opened in 1911 for tin excavation, with lithium mining only starting in 1953. A 2021 British Geological Survey report said it was the only mine in Africa producing lithium, though this was yet to be used in battery supply chains.
At a meeting with Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa in April, Bikita Minerals general manager and Sinomine director Wang Zhenhua promised to help the government achieve a US$12 billion output in the mining sector by 2023.
