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Zimbabwean miners eye $600 million projects for 2025 amid investment challenges
Mining executives in Zimbabwe – including CEOs of units of Impala Platinum, Sibanye-Stillwater and Anglo American Platinum, among others – are planning up to $600 million in capital expenditures for 2025, despite expectations that the investment climate will worsen.
Zimbabwe is among the world’s top producers of platinum group metals (PGM), lithium and nickel while it also has vast deposits of coal, lithium and diamonds among others.
To tap into the allure of the rising demand for commodities, existing investors in Zimbabwe are planning $600m in capex in 2025, a survey by the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe showed on Friday.
With mineral exports projected at $5.5 billion this year, expectations are that next year the mining industry in Zimbabwe will notch up mineral exports to $6bn on the back of an increase in business confidence for the mining sector.
“Mining executives are generally confident about their businesses’ prospects in 2025,” said the chamber of mines survey report.
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It said the positivity in sentiment and confidence among mining chiefs in Zimbabwe had been “driven by variables such as commodity market outlook (and) mining industry” growth.
However, the mining sector investment “environment expected to worsen” with the Chamber of Mines’ index for investment competitiveness for 2025 at a lowly -12.4 points.
“This means that mining executives are generally pessimistic about prospects for a competitive investment environment in 2025 citing unstable fiscal regime, uncertainty on mining policy and legislation and policy reversals,” noted the survey.
With the investment climate skewed negatively, the profitability of Zimbabwe’s mining projects is expected to decline. The Chamber of Mines’ profitability prospects index for 2025 was measured at -0.7 points.
Despite this, prospects for mineral output growth is positive at 79.2%, with business leaders across the sector generally optimistic about the prospects of ramping up production in 2025.
About 80% of surveyed mining industry executives indicated that they will ramp up production by up to 20% in 2025.
Apart from crippled access to foreign currency to cover key imported raw materials, Zimbabwean mining executives are also worried about infrastructure and energy prospects for 2025 that are weighed down by fragile and expensive power.
Electricity supply has been erratic, worsening in the past two months due to low water levels at the Kariba Dam from where Zimbabwe and Zambia produce electricity.
“Mining executives are expecting the infrastructure and energy situation to worsen in 2025 on the back of increasing demand and prospects for an increased tariff in 2024,” said the report.
Nonetheless, world commodity market conditions are expected to improve next year. In terms of job creation, Zimbabwe’s mining sector employment is projected to grow in 2025. The index for employment prospects for 2025 was measured at +5.1%.
“The mining industry formal employment is expected to increase by around 3% in 2025 to 58 700, from 57 000 in 2024.”