Keypoints:
- Mining exports could top $30bn from 2026–2040
- Major rutile, uranium and rare earth projects advance
- Local value addition remains the decisive challenge
MALAWI’S vast deposits of rutile, graphite, uranium and rare earths are moving closer to becoming the foundation of a new export economy, raising hopes that mining could help transform a country long constrained by weak growth, foreign-exchange shortages and dependence on agriculture.
But the size of the mineral endowment is only part of the story.
The greater test is whether Malawi can capture enough value from the coming mining boom to create skilled jobs, strengthen public finances and build domestic industries — rather than simply exporting minerals for higher-value processing overseas.
That challenge has become more urgent as several projects move from exploration and feasibility studies towards construction and production. The World Bank now estimates that Malawi’s mining sector could generate more than $30bn in exports between 2026 and 2040 if major projects are successfully developed.
Mining moves from promise to production
Mining currently contributes less than one percent of Malawi’s GDP, underscoring how dramatically the economic structure could change if the current project pipeline materialises.
The World Bank identifies seven advanced projects involving uranium, rutile, graphite, rare earths and other strategic minerals. Under business-as-usual conditions, however, it expects only three to proceed, potentially limiting annual government revenue to around $400m by 2040. Effective reforms could raise that towards $600m.
One of the largest projects is Kasiya in central Malawi.
Sovereign Metals completed a definitive feasibility study in April 2026 for a deposit containing an estimated 17.9m tonnes of rutile and 24.4m tonnes of graphite. The company describes Kasiya as the world’s largest known natural rutile deposit and second-largest flake graphite deposit.
Rutile is a high-grade titanium feedstock used in industries ranging from aerospace to pigments, while graphite is a critical input in lithium-ion batteries.
In southern Malawi, Lindian Resources is advancing Kangankunde, a rare earths project containing an estimated resource of 261m tonnes at 2.14 percent total rare earth oxides. The company says construction is progressing towards first production in the fourth quarter of 2026.
Africa Briefing has previously examined Malawi’s push to bring Kangankunde into production as the country seeks a place in increasingly strategic global rare earth supply chains.
Uranium revival adds momentum
Malawi’s mineral resurgence is already producing results elsewhere.
Lotus Resources restarted uranium production at Kayelekera in August 2025 after the mine had spent more than a decade in care and maintenance. The operation is ramping up towards steady-state output of about 2.4m pounds of uranium oxide annually.
Meanwhile, Mkango Resources completed an updated definitive feasibility study for the Songwe Hill rare earths project in March 2026.
Together, Kasiya, Kangankunde, Songwe and Kayelekera are beginning to turn Malawi from an underdeveloped mining jurisdiction into a serious participant in the critical-minerals economy.
New exploration is also widening the pipeline. Africa Briefing reported in August that AuKing Mining had agreed to acquire the Machinga rare earths project, covering two exploration licences in southern Malawi.
$30bn prize comes with conditions
The headline export numbers are enormous in the context of Malawi’s economy.
The World Bank projects more than $30bn in cumulative mining exports between 2026 and 2040. Its latest roadmap estimates annual export revenues of about $1.5bn–$1.7bn under business-as-usual conditions, rising to $2.3bn–$2.5bn if investment constraints are substantially removed.
Yet export value should not be confused with money retained inside Malawi.
The World Bank estimates that, with Malawi’s current supplier base, only about one-third of the value of mineral exports would likely return to the country to support foreign-exchange reserves.
That distinction goes to the centre of the country’s development challenge.
Mining can generate foreign exchange and tax revenues, but the economic multiplier becomes much larger when local businesses provide equipment, engineering, transport, professional services and processing capacity.
The issue mirrors a wider continental debate examined in Africa Briefing’s analysis of Africa’s vast strategic mineral wealth: possessing the resource does not automatically mean capturing the most profitable parts of its value chain.
Processing abroad exposes the dilemma
Malawi’s emerging rare earth supply chains illustrate that problem particularly clearly.
Mkango’s updated Songwe plan envisages producing a mixed rare earth carbonate in Malawi before sending material to a proposed separation facility at Puławy in Poland. Its feasibility assumptions currently envisage production ramping up from 2029.
Lindian, meanwhile, is pursuing a different overseas downstream route.
The company is acquiring the SARECO processing facility at Stepnogorsk in Kazakhstan, where concentrate from Kangankunde is expected to be converted into higher-value mixed rare earth carbonate. Around 12,500 tonnes of Kangankunde concentrate a year is expected to feed the facility under its initial plan.
Those strategies may make commercial sense for companies seeking established processing infrastructure and specialist expertise.
For Malawi, however, they expose the central policy dilemma: the country can become a significant mineral exporter while much of the downstream value continues to be created elsewhere.
Zimbabwe is already attempting to alter that equation by forcing more lithium processing onto its own soil, a strategy explored in Africa Briefing’s analysis of Zimbabwe’s lithium beneficiation drive.
Power and skills could decide outcome
Domestic beneficiation cannot simply be mandated into existence.
Malawi first needs the electricity, transport systems, technical skills and regulatory capacity necessary to sustain a larger mining and processing economy.
The World Bank estimates mining operations could require about 120MW of additional electricity by 2032. It identifies reliable power as the single most important infrastructure constraint facing the industry.
Skills present another weakness.
Only about 2.5 percent of Malawi’s workforce currently has the technical qualifications required by the mining industry, according to the World Bank roadmap, raising the danger that expansion could depend heavily on imported specialist labour unless training capacity grows quickly.
Regulatory certainty is equally important. The World Bank has urged Malawi to clarify state equity participation, strengthen mining-development agreements, improve geological data and build the capacity of regulatory and revenue institutions.
Minerals offer no automatic escape
Malawi therefore has a rare opportunity — but not a guaranteed transformation.
Its mineral deposits are increasingly valuable as global economies compete for secure supplies of materials needed for batteries, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing and defence.
The question is no longer whether Malawi possesses resources that the world wants.
It is whether policymakers can turn those resources into an economy that produces more than minerals.
If mining strengthens local suppliers, develops technical skills, provides reliable infrastructure and eventually supports more processing inside Malawi, the current investment wave could become the foundation of a broader industrial economy.
If most of the value continues to leave alongside the minerals, the country may record spectacular export figures without fundamentally changing the economic structure beneath them.
That is the real wager behind Malawi’s critical-minerals boom.
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