Zimbabwe’s Surprise Lithium Ban Scrambles Global Battery Supply Chains

This week, Zimbabwe took a historic step to protect its own value chains from external exploitation by fast-tracking a ban on raw lithium exports, effective until further notice – and the impacts have been widespread both domestically and abroad. The February 25 ban was immediate and unexpected, as were its impacts on global battery supply chains and local mining operations.

Originally, the export ban was planned for January 2027, with the intent of incentivizing the local processing and refining of lithium instead of leaving value additions – and their associated profits – to importing nations. Zimbabwe is the largest producer of lithium in Africa, and has some of the largest proven lithium reserves in the world, according to figures from the US Geological Survey (USGS).

Africa is rich in resources central to the clean energy transition. While this opens up a world of opportunity for many developing economies around the continent, it also comes with significant tradeoffs, including energy autonomy and the ability to keep the profits from African primary resources within Africa, where they are sorely needed. African leaders are faced with a dilemma – accepting international investment in exchange for exporting energy resources needed within Africa, or taking the much more difficult, costly, and time-consuming option of building up homegrown value chains.

Unfortunately, Zimbabwe’s surprise ban has had some unintended negative consequences on the ground. “Regrettably, in the period following that announcement, we witnessed an unprecedented and unacceptable scramble,” Zimbabwe information ministry’s Nick Mangwana said in a statement on social media. “Instead of preparing for value addition, some actors engaged in a frenzy of mining activity, seeking to extract and export as much raw lithium as possible before the deadline,” he went on to say.

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According to a report from Africa News, some insiders also report that large quantities of lithium have been “illicitly stockpiled in a neighbouring country.”  Mangwana has denounced this tactic as a “plunder” of Zimbabwe’s “economic future”.

The move has also had immediate ramifications for Chinese battery manufacturers and global lithium-ion battery value chains, especially already-volatile EV markets. Historically, most of Zimbabwe’s lithium exports have gone to Chinese markets, and the South African nation has become “a critical supplier to China’s lithium ecosystem” according to Business Insider Africa.

“For China, which dominates global lithium processing and battery manufacturing, the policy shift represents a direct supply shock,” the Business Insider report states. “Despite its midstream dominance, China remains dependent on imported hard-rock spodumene concentrate, sourced largely from Africa and Australia, to feed its vast refining capacity.”

China has been working hard to establish dominance in clean energy supply chains in emerging economies for years now. Influence in developing countries rich in primary energy manufacturing materials is a central pillar of China’s energy security strategy and its mission to become the world’s first electro-state as well as the “center of gravity for global energy markets.”

The spread of China’s influence has been rapid, extreme, and shadowy across the African continent. A 2025 report from the China Global South Project (CGSP) revealed that “in the years between 2020 and 2024, Chinese companies and financiers have been involved in 84 energy projects across the continent, with a combined capacity of more than 32 gigawatts – enough electricity to light up over 135 million urban African homes, or more than half a billion rural homes, every year,” CGSP summarizes.

But exporting all that potential to China presents a huge issue for Africa’s energy future. Today, approximately 600 million people in Africa lack access to electricity, and the continent’s energy demand is expected to increase by a factor of three over the next decade as sub-Saharan Africa grows, develops, and industrializes. Meeting projected demand will require power generation capacity to increase tenfold by 2065.

Some critics argue that Zimbabwe’s decision to try to homeshore value chains has come too late, but the move is in line with a much larger shift in global geopolitics. “While China maintains a commanding position in refining and battery production, upstream resource holders are increasingly asserting leverage,” reports Business Insider Africa.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com