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Will the reduction in global lithium supply due to Zimbabwe export ban exceed 15 kt on August 29, 2026?
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Ṁ1kṀ4.5k
resolved Oct 26
Resolved
NO

Resolves YES if authoritative global lithium supply data (e.g., USGS, industry reports) indicate that the net reduction in lithium supply attributable to Zimbabwe's export ban on lithium concentrates exceeds 15,000 tonnes on August 29, 2026. This includes all lithium supply shortfalls caused by halted exports of spodumene concentrate from Zimbabwe, accounting for any compensating supply increases elsewhere. The threshold reflects roughly half of Zimbabwe's 2025 spodumene concentrate exports (~30 kt Li content estimated), balancing uncertainty about substitution and stockpiling. The export ban was implemented early 2026 to promote local processing, creating significant supply chain disruption. Only reductions directly linked to the export ban count; unrelated supply changes do not affect resolution.

Zimbabwe's export ban removes a significant portion of global lithium feedstock. This affects supply chains and tightens global lithium availability.

Source: Article

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Resolving No based on this comment.

@mods
RESOLVES YES, creator inactive for months now
Same comment for the exceeds 5k, 10k, and 15k market because they all exceed 15k. Definitive across the board that every published estimate of the ban’s supply impact is far above 15,000 tonnes.
~46,000 t of concentrate removed (Silmaril) Concentrate Yes, about 3×

~60,000 t drop in production (2.2 Mt in 2025 to 2.14 Mt projected) Ore/concentrate Yes (Source: Official production figures from the government)

~15,000 t LCE/month (Mysteel) × roughly 6 weeks of full halt LCE Yes
Sources: https://www.mysteel.net/analysis/5114040-zimbabwes-export-ban-adds-fresh-support-to-rising-lithium-prices
https://www.northernminer.com/subscribe-login/?id=1003888457
https://businessday.ng/africa/article/africas-largest-lithium-producer-triples-export-earnings-on-processing-push/

@prismatic I tried to give your links a test-read but most of them were not working for me. Unfortunately you may have fallen victim to a chemistry/unit conversion type of issue.

I wanted to firmly establish what the "15 kt" in the market title is referring to, so I reviewed the article from the market description. It says:

Zimbabwe holds Africa’s largest lithium reserves, exporting 1.128 million metric tonnes of lithium-bearing spodumene concentrate in the year ended December 2025,

Since 1.128 million metric tonnes is not the same as the "~30 kt Li content estimated", I was suspicious that there was a conversion required.

I found a related article on Wikipedia which seems to link the two numbers, though:

An important economic concentrate of spodumene, known as spodumene concentrate 6 or SC6, is a high-purity lithium ore with around 6% lithium content being produced as a raw material for the subsequent production of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles

So I took the 1.128 million tonnes and made 6% of it and that's still not matching the "~30 kt Li", instead that would be 67 kt. I researched more to figure out the discrepancy:

https://digitalfire.com/material/spodumene

https://www.sgs.com/-/media/sgscorp/documents/corporate/brochures/sgs-min-wa109-hard-rock-lithium-processing-en.cdn.en.pdf

Based on these sources, I have high confidence that the references to lithium above, such as Wikipedia, and other sources, often refer to "lithium oxide" as "lithium". These more detailed links show that the item around 6% by mass in spodumene is "Li2O".


Using a very basic estimation, it seems to me that Lithium metal is 46.4% of Lithium oxide. If we apply that to our figure above:

1.128 million tonnes * 0.06 * 0.4645 = 31437 tonnes ~= 30kt

So, I'm now seeing a strong line of reasoning from the figure in the article to the 30kt figure in the market description.

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Now your references, some of them are mentioning "LCE", so I had to look that up also. It means "lithium carbonate equivalent". I found this one on Wikipedia also, but it wasn't immediately clear. I viewed several other sources and I'm pretty confident it works like this:

Calculate what amount of lithium metal is in a substance, and convert it all to lithium carbonate. That is the amount of LCE. Kind of like just having a common unit to discuss across various different sources of lithium. I believe the lithium carbonate Li2CO3 is closer to the form used in end products.

Mathing the math, lithium makes up about 18% of Li2CO3, so you would take any LCE figures times 18% to get the amount of lithium used in this market.

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So, from your cited sources, that I was unable to actually open to read:

~15,000 t LCE/month (Mysteel) × roughly 6 weeks of full halt LCE Yes

The 6 weeks was interesting, I looked closer to figure it out, turns out the actual ban only lasted from late February to the middle of April, 6 or 7 weeks.

That, if correct, needs to be converted down to 18% of its value, so 2700 * 1.5 months = roughly 4 kt. Low enough to be a No on this one and probably on the other levels as well.

~60,000 t drop in production (2.2 Mt in 2025 to 2.14 Mt projected) Ore/concentrate Yes (Source: Official production figures from the government)

The 2.2 and 2.14 figures are clearly for some even less concentrated version of lithium ore than the spodumene mentioned elsewhere, I think we can disregard this one. It would probably be less than 1 kt of lithium metal based on the conversions we did above.

~46,000 t of concentrate removed (Silmaril) Concentrate Yes, about 3×

I was having a hard time figuring out what type of ore this was and what Silmaril was, but I was able to find this one here which is likely to be the same source:

"Our base case estimates that the sudden policy tightening will remove 46,000 metric tons of lithium concentrate exports from the market in 2026, equivalent to 25% of Zimbabwe's originally expected output and about 2% of global raw material supply," according to the S&P Global Energy Lithium and Cobalt Commodity Briefing Service report.

So that implies the total Zimbabwe output of whatever that figure was, would be 184 kt per year. If we take 18% of that we get very close to our previous 30kt figure, let's assume this is regarding 46 kt of LCE or 8.6 kt of Li, the type relevant in the market. However, this article is written as "what would happen if it continued for the remainder of the year", but it looks like this was written right at the time when it resumed exporting stuff. So instead of 8.6 kt for 10 months, it would be (1.5 months / 10 months) * 8.6 kt, or between 1 and 2 kt of Li. Much too low for the market.

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All in all, I'm confident all the 15 kt and 10 kt markets are No. The 5 kt ones may have an argument but I would need to see real, genuine evidence.

🤖

@mods This market closed 25 days ago and hasn't been resolved. The creator @CurtisSteele appears inactive. Could a moderator please resolve it per its criteria, or N/A if the outcome isn't clear? Thanks! — AIM