Keypoints:
- Zimbabwe suspends antimony and tungsten exports
- Harare demands greater domestic mineral processing
- Critical-minerals strategy moves beyond lithium
ZIMBABWE has suspended exports of antimony and tungsten in all forms, escalating its drive to keep more mineral value at home as competition intensifies over critical raw materials used in advanced manufacturing, defence and strategic industries.
The move takes Zimbabwe’s beneficiation campaign beyond lithium and sends a broader message to mining companies: access to the country’s increasingly strategic mineral resources will be tied more closely to domestic processing rather than the traditional model of extracting and shipping minerals abroad.
Harare widens minerals crackdown
The suspension was contained in a July 21, 2026 directive from Secretary for Mines and Mining Development Thomas Utete Wushe to the state-owned Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe.
Mining Zimbabwe reported that the order instructed MMCZ to suspend exports of antimony and tungsten immediately and until further notice, covering ores and concentrates as well as other forms of the two minerals.
MMCZ markets and sells Zimbabwe’s minerals apart from gold and silver, placing the agency at the centre of Harare’s increasingly interventionist mineral export policy.
The decision follows a May overhaul of Zimbabwe’s critical-minerals policy, when Mines Minister Polite Kambamura classified antimony and tungsten alongside lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, copper, rare earth elements and other resources as critical minerals.
Under that framework, raw or unbeneficiated exports were prohibited unless authorised through a government-approved transitional plan setting out a route towards local processing.
The July directive appears to tighten that position for antimony and tungsten by suspending exports in all forms until further notice.
Lithium becomes policy blueprint
Zimbabwe has already tested this strategy extensively in lithium.
Harare suspended lithium concentrate exports in February before relaxing the restrictions in April and introducing conditional export quotas. A complete prohibition on lithium concentrate exports is scheduled for January 2027, with mining companies being pushed towards production of higher-value lithium chemicals.
Africa Briefing has previously examined Zimbabwe’s lithium producers are seeking more time to adjust to the 2027 processing deadline, highlighting the tension between government industrial ambitions and the practical constraints facing miners.
Yet progress is visible.
China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt made Zimbabwe’s first lithium sulphate shipment in April from a $400m processing plant capable of producing 50,000 tonnes annually.
The development marked an important transition from concentrate exports towards an intermediate product further up the battery supply chain and provided Harare with evidence that tougher beneficiation rules can attract investment in processing.
Africa Briefing has also examined Zimbabwe’s broader effort to use lithium policy as a test of domestic mineral beneficiation.
Extending that philosophy to antimony and tungsten suggests Harare increasingly views export controls not simply as mining regulation but as industrial policy.
Strategic metals raise global stakes
Antimony and tungsten are considerably smaller industries in Zimbabwe than gold, platinum or lithium, but their strategic importance gives the latest decision significance beyond export volumes.
Tungsten is prized for its extreme hardness and heat resistance and is used in cutting and mining equipment, jet-engine components, electronics and heavy alloys, including applications linked to the defence industry.
Antimony is used in products including batteries, flame retardants and specialised alloys, giving it significance across both civilian and strategic supply chains.
Both metals are classified as critical minerals by major industrial economies because their supply chains are heavily concentrated and vulnerable to disruption.
China remains especially influential.
US Geological Survey data indicate that China accounted for about 83 percent of global mined tungsten production in 2024, underscoring the degree to which alternative sources remain limited.
Beijing has also introduced export controls covering antimony and tungsten-related products, adding to concern among Western governments over security of supply.
That makes new sources of the metals potentially more strategically important as the US, Europe and other economies seek to reduce dependence on concentrated Chinese supply chains.
Zimbabwe’s intervention therefore comes at a moment when control over mineral processing is becoming almost as important geopolitically as control over the mines themselves.
Processing capacity faces test
The harder question is whether Zimbabwe has sufficient infrastructure, capital and technical capacity to process the minerals commercially at home.
Just three days before the July 21 directive, the Mines Ministry and MMCZ held talks with antimony and tungsten producers to discuss challenges affecting mineral exports and ways to improve competitiveness.
That timing suggests policymakers were already confronting practical concerns within the two sectors before imposing the suspension.
Zimbabwe’s experience with lithium illustrates the scale of the challenge.
The country currently has only one operational lithium sulphate plant, and Reuters reported in July that its operator said the facility could not process material produced by third-party miners.
That constraint is significant because export restrictions can only drive industrialisation if miners have realistic access to processing capacity.
Beneficiation plants require large amounts of capital, reliable electricity, specialist technology, chemicals, logistics and sufficient mineral volumes to operate economically.
The policy challenge for Harare will therefore be turning regulatory pressure into commercially sustainable processing industries rather than simply leaving miners with material they cannot export or refine locally.
Africa demands more mineral value
Zimbabwe is not acting in isolation.
Across Africa, governments are questioning a decades-old economic model under which ores leave the continent while much of the refining, manufacturing, employment and final value creation occurs elsewhere.
The DRC has used export controls and quotas to exercise greater influence over cobalt supply, while Guinea has increased pressure on bauxite producers to invest further downstream.
Africa Briefing has documented how the DRC has used cobalt export quotas to exert greater influence over global supply, part of a wider continental shift towards more assertive resource policy.
The broader ambition is straightforward: convert geological wealth into industrial capacity.
But Zimbabwe’s antimony and tungsten suspension will test whether an export restriction can create that capacity quickly enough.
If processors invest, the policy could help Harare capture more revenue, skills and industrial activity from relatively specialised minerals whose geopolitical importance is increasing.
If domestic capacity fails to develop, however, miners could face growing stockpiles, disrupted revenues and weaker incentives to expand production.
Zimbabwe is effectively making a bigger bet: that in an era of tightening critical-mineral supply chains, countries possessing strategic resources can demand more than royalties and export earnings.
They can demand that some of the industry comes with them.
Related stories
Zimbabwe miners seek delay to 2027 lithium ban
Zimbabwe tests lithium beneficiation strategy
Congo cobalt export quotas reshape supply
