Zimbabwe to stop licensing isolated mining operations

Last week, Vice President Dr Constantino Chiwenga attended the Zimbabwe-China Business Forum, where he announced that the government will no longer issue licenses for isolated, single-mineral operations.

Chiwenga said all future mining investments will now be required to include beneficiation capacity for separating and processing the multiple mineral ores embedded in local deposits.

He said mining operations unable to identify, separate and beneficiate the full range of minerals in their deposits would not be allowed to operate locally.

He urged companies to invest across the entire value chain to move the economy away from the export of raw materials and retain more value from its mineral resources.

“The multi-layered nature of our mineral resources demands integrated mining operations,” said Chiwenga.

“We are no longer permitting isolated, single mining operations. We, therefore, encourage investors to bring in machinery capable of identifying and separating all embedded minerals.”

The policy is intended to ensure that Zimbabwe derives greater economic value from its mineral resources by encouraging investment beyond extraction and into processing and beneficiation.

Chiwenga’s announcement also means mining investors will need to consider beneficiation capacity as part of their operations rather than treating mineral processing as a separate stage further down the value chain.

The government has been pushing for greater local beneficiation as part of efforts to reduce the export of unprocessed minerals. In March, the government told Parliament that it was developing beneficiation strategies for individual minerals and monitoring companies’ compliance with expectations around mineral value addition.

The latest licensing position places greater emphasis on identifying the different minerals contained within a deposit and processing them locally.