Sandawana Mines (Pvt) Ltd.

Current position

Assessment

Sandawana Mines holds a JORC-compliant resource of 39.9 million tonnes announced on 23 July 2026, of which 72 per cent is classified measured and indicated, derived from Block A alone, representing 30 per cent of a 3,800-hectare claim. The operator's announced processing investment is a US$300 million concentrator plant. A concentrator produces lithium concentrate, which is the product the 1 January 2027 prohibition is directed at, and does not itself constitute compliant beneficiation capacity. A lithium sulphate plant forms part of a wider Block A development programme but no construction start or commissioning date for it has been published. As at 31 August 2026 construction of the concentrator had not begun. Chief executive Innocent Rukweza stated the company was targeting a construction start at the end of September 2026 and commissioning in November 2027, with site clearance contingent on relocating 104 families and exhuming 52 graves. On that timeline the concentrator post-dates the prohibition by ten months and the sulphate plant on which compliance would depend remains undated. No route to compliant beneficiation capacity by 1 January 2027 is visible on the evidence available. Two matters are recorded as unresolved. Ownership is reported variously as Kuvimba Mining House and as Mutapa Energy Resources. Project funding is described in some reporting as US$300 million from a Chinese-backed consortium on a build-operate-transfer basis, while Rukweza has stated the company intends to fund its expansion organically with reduced reliance on loans or alternative funding. Separately, Rukweza has stated that Sandawana has been transporting lithium ore to the Gwanda lithium plant over the preceding seven months; the tonnage reported is not credible against the stated resource and is not recorded here, but the processing relationship between the two operations is noted.

Facility

Stage

Construction

Production

Producing

Sources

1. Sandawana Mines Unveils JORC-Compliant 40 Million-Tonne Lithium Resource
   Mining Zimbabwe23 July 2026
2. Mutapa to build US$300m lithium plant at Sandawana
   The Herald (via Zimbabwe Situation)31 August 2026
3. Sandawana Mine to relocate 104 families for US$300m lithium processing plant
   NewZimbabwe28 August 2026