It was reported on Oct. 17, 2025 that China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt plans to begin producing lithium sulphate from its new $400 million plant at the Arcadia mine in Zimbabwe during the first quarter of 2026. The newly completed plant has a capacity to produce over 50,000 metric tons of lithium sulphate annually. The Arcadia mine is operated by Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe, a fully owned subsidiary of Huayou.

Huayou had acquired the Arcadia mine for $400 million in 2022, and then built the first lithium concentrator plant at a cost of $300 million, which was commissioned in July 2023. Huayou exported 400,000 tons of lithium concentrate from Zimbabwe in 2024.

Lithium sulphate is an intermediate product, also called concentrate, which requires further refining into a battery-grade material such as lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate which are used in battery manufacturing. The Zimbabwe government will ban the export of lithium concentrates from 2027 as it is pushing to produce battery grade lithium within the country.