Deutsche Welle (DW) said on Monday that a Chinese company has signed a contract with a lithium mine in Zimbabwe to export the metal needed for the production of batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs) to China from 2023.
Chinese company Suzhou TA&A Ultra Clean Technology Co. It has beaten nearly a dozen competitors from other regions, including Europe and Australia, and won a lithium export contract in Zimbabwe with Zulu Lithium Mines, a subsidiary of Premier African Minerals, DW reported on July 11.
George Roach, CEO of Zulu Lithium Mines, told Reuters on Monday that the company’s Suzhou TA&A Ultra Clean Technology Co. He said he decided to do business with “From various Chinese, European and Australian investors.”
“At one point I was in 11 separate deals with people who wanted Zulu!” “It was a very busy period,” added Roach.
Under the recently signed contract, Premier African Minerals plans to begin shipments of lithium-containing rock, called spodumene concentrate, from its Zimbabwe mine to China by the end of March 2023.
According to Roach, Suzhou has agreed to invest $35 million to build a large-capacity pilot plant at the Zulu Lithium Mines. Reuters said the estimated production capacity of such a plant is “about 50,000 tons of spodumene concentrate per year.”
The news agency detailed the metal deal on Monday, writing:
Roach said it can start immediately with financing, with the goal of increasing shipment and production to around 48,000 tons of spodumene concentrate per year by March 31, 2023.
In March, Suzhou had a 13.38% stake in Premier. [African Minerals] It provided spodumene concentrate to Yibin Tianyi, a leading Chinese lithium chemicals producer owned by Suzhou, together with CATL, the world’s largest EV batteries manufacturer, through a private settlement where it invested £12 million ($14.37 million) in the company.
People mingle in front of the new Parliament building in Hampden Hill, Zimbabwe, on June 29, 2022. Built and fully funded by China as a gift to the South African nation, Zimbabwe’s new parliament building is complete and ready to take over. (Photo by Sean Juice/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Reuters describes Suzhou TA&A Ultra Clean Technology Co. As “primarily engaged in the research, development, production and sales of anti-static ultra-clean products”. The news agency describes Zulu Lithium Mines’ parent company, Premier African Minerals, as a “diversified mining and natural resources company”.
Lithium is a metal used in the manufacture of electric batteries. The growing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) powered by lithium batteries has seen the metal become a hot commodity in recent years.
“A step like Suzhou, [sic]Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt announced last month that it plans to invest $300 million in a hard rock lithium mine near the Zimbabwean capital, DW reported on July 11.
Beijing has established a relationship with Zimbabwe through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Under the program, the Chinese government finances infrastructure projects in developing or low-income countries, often through questionable loan structures that threaten to push debt participants to Beijing.
Decades of economic mismanagement and corruption by Zimbabwe’s socialist government have left the country among the poorest in the world. In 2019, the United Nations estimated that Zimbabwe was “on the verge of man-made famine, with 60% of the population now considered to be food insecure”. Although China’s previous projects under the BRI have generally failed to deliver local growth in the economy as Beijing promised, the latest prospect of the country’s lithium exports to South Africa will provide much-needed assistance to the Zimbabwean economy.
Source: Breitbart
