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Harare, Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe wants to move beyond being a supplier of raw minerals and build industries that process and manufacture from its own resources. But as the government tightens restrictions on unprocessed mineral exports, smaller miners are asking whether they will share in that transformation or be left behind.

The government has restricted exports of unprocessed strategic minerals, including lithium, as part of a broader drive to increase domestic beneficiation. Authorities argue that Zimbabwe should capture more value from its mineral wealth instead of exporting raw materials and allowing other countries to profit from refining and manufacturing.

The policy has attracted more than $1bn in investment into Zimbabwe’s lithium value chain, according to government officials and industry representatives. But smaller miners warn that the cost of building processing facilities, unreliable electricity supplies and limited access to finance could make it difficult for them to participate in the country’s industrial ambitions.

Speaking during a technical media tour of Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe (PLZ) in Goromonzi, Mashonaland East, on 17 July, Minister of Mines and Mining Development Polite Kambamura said Zimbabwe’s 2022 ban on exports of unbeneficiated lithium ore had encouraged companies to invest in domestic beneficiation.

“The construction of the first lithium sulphate plant in Africa is behind me, and this was done in Zimbabwe,” Kambamura said.

He said Zimbabwe’s ambitions extended beyond lithium sulphate and lithium carbonate production, with a long-term goal of developing industries capable of manufacturing lithium batteries and solar panels locally.

Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe, owned by China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, said its lithium carbonate plant was about 90 percent complete.

PLZ public relations officer Patience Mushore said Huayou’s investments had generated more than $1.1bn in foreign exchange for Zimbabwe while expanding the country’s lithium value chain.

Policy shift

Supporters of Zimbabwe’s export restrictions argue that the country can no longer remain a supplier of raw minerals while other nations capture greater profits through refining and manufacturing.

Public policy expert Tedious Ncube said Zimbabwe’s lithium sector demonstrated why the government had prioritised beneficiation.

He pointed to investments at Arcadia Mine and Bikita Minerals as examples of companies expanding Zimbabwe’s lithium sector.

Ncube said domestic processing could create skilled jobs, strengthen local suppliers and allow Zimbabwe to retain a greater share of the income generated from its mineral resources.

“The success of Zimbabwe’s lithium industry shows that the right policy can attract investment that builds industries, creates jobs and leaves a bigger share of mineral wealth in Zimbabwe,” he said.

Mining concerns

For smaller producers, the debate is not whether Zimbabwe should process its minerals locally, but whether they will have the infrastructure, finance, and market access needed to participate.

Shelton Lucas, business development director at Naivo Mining, said the company operates chrome, antimony and tungsten projects in Mashava, Ngezi and Kadoma but faces challenges accessing affordable processing options.

Lucas said smaller producers were struggling to access processing capacity, particularly in the chrome sector.

“For our raw chrome, we are now forced to sell to local Chinese smelters where they underpay us. For antimony, I have the resources to build the value-addition plant, but for chrome I cannot because the plant is very expensive,” he said.

He said he supported domestic processing but warned that smaller miners could be excluded if new requirements were introduced without support mechanisms.

Lucas proposed a toll-smelting system, where public institutions or industry bodies invest in shared processing facilities that miners can access at transparent rates while retaining ownership of their minerals.

“The challenge is not only building processing plants, but also ensuring smaller producers can access capacity on fair terms,” he said.

Without such measures, he warned that a small number of companies could end up controlling processing capacity and market access.

“If these companies also hold export rights, they could dictate prices to small-scale miners, creating what could become a predatory market that undermines the very people the mining sector is meant to empower,” he said.

Economic constraints

Economists say Zimbabwe’s processing ambitions will depend on whether the country can overcome longstanding challenges affecting mining and manufacturing.

United Kingdom-based Zimbabwean economist Chenayi Mutambasere told Al Jazeera that the policy faced obstacles including power shortages, expensive financing, weak transport infrastructure, foreign exchange constraints and limited access to processing technology.

“The ban should be more than a political slogan; it should be an industrial practical strategy,” she said.

Mutambasere said the government needed to support the policy with reliable electricity, investor incentives, skills development and clear implementation timelines.

She warned that restrictions introduced before the necessary support systems were in place could create unintended consequences.

“An abrupt ban where companies have invested in the sector may push the mining sector further underground, which could increase mineral leakage,” she said.

Government vision

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Nick Mangwana told Al Jazeera that the policy was intended to ensure Zimbabwe gains more from its finite mineral resources.

“The government is implementing this beneficiation policy in our minerals for the growth of our economy and to create a lasting legacy that will be witnessed by future generations,” Mangwana said.

He said the policy applied not only to lithium but also to other strategic minerals, including platinum group metals such as palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium and osmium.

Zimbabwe’s push reflects a wider debate among resource-rich countries: whether restricting raw exports can build domestic industries without concentrating opportunities among a few large companies.

For smaller miners, the success of the strategy will depend not only on how much mineral processing takes place inside the country, but whether beneficiation creates broader participation or leaves only the biggest players able to compete.

Lucas said the goal should be to ensure that local processing expands opportunities across the mining sector rather than creating new barriers for smaller producers.

“Beneficiation should not become a barrier to participation. It should be an enabler of inclusive growth, industrial development and sustainable economic transformation,” Lucas said.

Before the war, roughly 15 million barrels of Gulf oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz every day, as roughly a fifth of the world’s traded oil moved through the maritime chokepoint in peacetime.

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With the channel still largely closed and prices elevated, at least seven major pipeline projects are now under construction, in planning or under discussion to push supplies out through the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Oman instead, according to Gulf officials, energy companies and market analysts.

With the Iran war reignited this month, Brent crude is trading again at around $93 a barrel at the time of writing, well above the roughly $72 it fetched after June’s short-lived truce, and the US benchmark WTI has also risen to roughly $90 a barrel.

Depending so heavily on the Strait of Hormuz “is no longer a prudent long-term strategy,” said Victoria Grabenwöger, a senior researcher at the data firm Kpler.

Two escape valves already exist, and both are close to their limits.

Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, built in the 1980s when Tehran threatened shipping during the Iran-Iraq war, carries crude from the Abqaiq complex to Yanbu on the Red Sea, where tankers head south towards the Arabian Sea or north to the Suez Canal.

Meanwhile, the UAE has been channelling more oil to Fujairah, its port on the Gulf of Oman about 145 kilometres south of the Strait of Hormuz.

Together the two links had a spare capacity of some 3.5 to 5.5 million barrels a day before the war, according to the US Energy Information Administration, and both now run close to full representing around 6.5 million barrels a day.

Abu Dhabi’s state oil company is also racing to finish a project it began before the war.

Its $3 billion (€2.6bn), 300-kilometre pipeline to Fujairah, laid alongside an existing line, is designed to lift deliveries by over 1.2 million barrels a day and is roughly half built, according to Kpler, which expects the official early-2027 completion target to slip to mid-2027 because the port itself must be expanded.

Even that timetable, the firm argues, only became conceivable because of the blockade.

Red Sea relief, Red Sea risk

The Red Sea route has vulnerabilities of its own, and this week served as a reminder.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who declared a blockade on Saudi-linked shipping in retaliation for the kingdom’s blockade of Yemen and an attack on Sanaa’s airport, said on Thursday they had attacked two Saudi tankers, the Encelia and the Layla, setting both on fire.

Saudi state media reported a blaze at the bow of the Encelia with no casualties, while the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre reported a tanker struck by “an unknown projectile” southwest of Al Shuqaiq.

The Iran-backed group has disrupted the Bab el-Mandeb Strait before, a maritime chokepoint carrying about 12% of world trade, and a Houthi drone strike forced the East-West pipeline itself to shut back in 2019.

Iraq’s $60 billion bet on Washington

Nowhere is the scramble more urgent than in Iraq, which draws about 90% of state revenues from oil exports and has had to cut output because of its dependence on the Strait of Hormuz.

Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi returned from Washington last week with 48 agreements signed with American firms, spanning energy, healthcare and technology and worth more than $60 billion, according to Reuters, including tie-ups involving ExxonMobil, Shell, Halliburton, KBR and GE Vernova.

The centrepiece is a deal with Syria to rebuild the long-dormant pipeline running from the Kirkuk fields to the Mediterranean port of Baniyas, a project Iraqi state media says Chevron will execute and which the US State Department, welcoming the plan, called “a critical energy corridor” with an initial capacity of 2 million barrels a day.

Baghdad is also weighing a line from Basra to Jordan’s Aqaba.

Washington’s ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, predicted the agreements would render the Strait of Hormuz “an afterthought”.

The second series of The Celebrity Traitors will hit screens later this year – and there’s reportedly going to be a huge plot twist that even the producers didn’t see coming

The second series of Celebrity Traitors is set to feature a huge plot twist that has never been seen on the hit BBC show before – that has reportedly left producers “shocked”.

Already being billed as the “most treacherous series so far”, it’s claimed that a third of the contestants will end up as Traitors when the new season starts later this year.

Revealing how the latest celeb series will be different to anything viewers have seen before, a source told The Sun: “Those working on the programme were quite shocked by the approach adopted by the core Traitors. They went on a recruiting spree that has never been seen on either the celebrity or the ‘civilian’ version of the show in the UK.

“Last year, the original three Traitors secretly selected by Claudia remained as a trio throughout the competition — which turned out to be a winning approach. But on the follow-up series, all that changes. There’s a thrilling shift in the balance of power,” the source added.

“Even though the whole programme is based on skullduggery, nobody thought it would reach these levels.”

Filming in the famous Scottish castle is already believed to have wrapped, but fans will have to wait for the show to air to find out who the Traitors are – and which famous faces they will go on to recruit.

This year’s impressive line-up of has already been revealed and there will be 21 contestants on the celebrity version of the show that’s hosted by Claudia Winkleman.

Among those taking part this year is actor Richard E Grant, along with Mick Jagger’s ex Jerry Hall, former EastEnders star Ross Kemp, You’re Beautiful singer James Blunt and Little Mix star Leigh-Anne Pinnock.

Love Island host Maya Jama will also battle it out to win the 2026 series alongside comedians Miranda Hart, Romesh Ranganathan, Rob Beckett, James Acaster, Joe Lycett and Joanne McNally.

Actors Michael Sheen, Sharon Rooney, Bella Ramsey, Myha’la, Sebastian Croft and ex Corrie star Julie Hesmondhalgh have also signed up to the show. Journalist and broadcaster Amol Rajan, boxer and YouTube star King Kenny and mathematician Professor Hannah Fry complete the 2026 line-up.

In the 2025 series, comedian Alan Carr schemed his way to victory after being cast as a traitor. And rumours are already swirling over who this year’s traitors will be.

Perrie Edwards has already predicted that her bandmate Leigh-Anne Pinnock will likely be cast as a traitor because of her affinity for mischief.

Speaking on the Hanging Out with Ant & Dec podcast, she said: “Oh she is so annoying, I already know she is going to annoy me. You don’t understand how infuriating it is, she would lie about silly things so she would do pranks and we’d be like, ‘Leigh-Anne’s that’s…’ and she’d be like ‘it’s a prank’ and I’m like ‘that’s not a prank you’ve just lied, it’s just annoying’. And so I don’t know if I’ve got it in me to watch her do that for a full series.”

*Celebrity Traitors will return to BBC One and iPlayer later this year

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