As China's lithium batteries dominate the global market, the &#34;lifeline&#34; of upstream mineral resources is gradually being choked.
On February 24, Zimbabwe, a major lithium resource country in Africa, suddenly announced a complete ban on the export of lithium concentrate, with all uncustomed containers being detained. According to Mysteel's research, the ban has already substantially affected shipments, with all unprocessed minerals (including lithium sulfate and lithium concentrate) being suspended, and the specific time for lifting the ban is yet to be determined.
Hua Xia Energy Network noted that just a week later, on March 4, Indonesia lowered its nickel ore production target for 2026 to 209 million tons, a reduction of about 20% compared to the previously approved production quota of 260-270 million tons in Indonesia's work plan and budget (RKAB).
The recent changes in these mineral resource countries indicate that global resource nationalism sentiments are on the rise. From &#34;selling ores&#34; to seeking &#34;pricing power,&#34; they are attempting to rewrite the global discourse on mineral resources by tightening the &#34;tap&#34; to gain greater and more long-term resource benefits.
In this new script, the most affected are Chinese lithium battery companies. Over the past decade, Chinese lithium battery companies have gone through several rounds of overseas expansion, gradually building a complete industrial chain of &#34;global mining - Chinese manufacturing - supplying the world.&#34; Now, this system is slowly becoming ineffective.
In the face of changes in global key mineral resources for lithium batteries, how should Chinese lithium battery companies respond?
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Frequent bans on key minerals
On February 24, Zimbabwe announced an immediate suspension of all unprocessed minerals and lithium concentrate exports, including goods currently in transit, with the lifting time to be notified later.
Zimbabwe is the fourth largest lithium producer in the world, with over 90% of its exported lithium concentrate going to China, accounting for about 19% of China's imported lithium concentrate. This export ban has significant implications for China's and even the global lithium battery industry chain. On the same day, domestic lithium carbonate futures main contract opened at a high with an increase of 11.8%.
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In fact, this is not the first ban from key mineral resource countries for lithium batteries.
In February 2025, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo introduced a cobalt export ban, suspending cobalt ore exports for four months, and after the ban expired, it was extended for another three months. The ban was only lifted in October last year, transitioning to export quota restrictions, and cobalt exports officially resumed in December, with the ban being implemented for about ten months.
The export ban from the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a typical &#34;production limit to support prices&#34; behavior. Previously, due to a slowdown in demand for ternary lithium batteries and the substitution of lithium iron phosphate batteries, the growth rate of cobalt demand was far lower than the expansion of production capacity. Cobalt prices have continued to decline since their peak in 2022, dropping below $10 per pound by early 2025, reaching a five-year low
As the world's largest cobalt reserve and production country, the sluggish cobalt prices directly affect the income of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Through export bans, global cobalt prices have been directly boosted, with domestic metal cobalt prices rising over 150% by the end of 2025 compared to before the ban.
Indonesia, the second-largest cobalt resource country and the largest nickel resource country in the world (accounting for about 60% of global supply), is also continuously tightening nickel ore exports. In 2020, Indonesia fully banned the export of nickel ore and mandated that mining license holders must process and refine raw materials, including nickel ore, within Indonesia.
Additionally, Namibia and Botswana have previously implemented similar bans, while South Africa approved the &#34;Critical Minerals and Metals Strategy&#34; in 2025, which clearly identifies platinum, manganese, and other minerals as highly critical minerals, while gold and rare earths are classified as medium-high critical minerals, and copper and graphite as medium critical minerals. Based on this, South Africa has continuously strengthened its regulation of the mineral market and restricted the export of related minerals.
The Dual Logic Behind Resource Countries Tightening Exports
Lithium battery material resource countries are uniformly regulating resources and restricting exports, primarily for two reasons: to avoid &#34;Dutch Disease&#34; and to respond to global resource nationalism.
Dutch Disease originated in 1959 when the Netherlands discovered a massive natural gas reserve and began large-scale development. With a surge in natural gas exports, a large influx of foreign exchange caused the Dutch guilder to appreciate sharply. A significant amount of capital and labor shifted to the gas sector, weakening the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry and leading to a &#34;deindustrialization&#34; problem, resulting in a singular economic structure. By the 1970s, the Netherlands faced severe inflation, and due to resource price fluctuations, the domestic economy remained unstable.
Returning to the present, whether it is Zimbabwe's lithium mine export ban, the DRC's cobalt mine ban, or Indonesia's nickel mine quotas, they are essentially efforts by key mineral resource countries to avoid &#34;Dutch Disease&#34; and prevent an economic model reliant on mineral exports from causing domestic economic structural imbalances.
To escape &#34;Dutch Disease,&#34; resource countries are prohibiting or tightening raw mineral exports to compel downstream companies to establish factories locally, keeping high-value-added processing stages within the country.
For example, Zimbabwe's Minister of Mines Kambamura stated that this measure is in the national interest, aiming to enhance mineral transparency, promote deep processing, and maximize resource value retention.
Indonesia's practice shows that this measure is very effective. After the nickel ore ban was implemented, a large amount of investment flowed into Indonesia, with smelting plants and precursor factories being established one after another. Indonesia's export structure has continuously optimized: raw mineral exports have nearly stagnated, replaced by intermediates and refined products. Indonesia has successfully captured a significant portion of the profit pie from the downstream of the industrial chain.
Hua Xia Energy Network notes that there is another layer of logic behind this, namely the rise of global resource nationalism.
Dr. Wang Yongzhong, a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, published an article stating that the new round of resource nationalism mainly appears in Africa, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region, typically aiming to strengthen resource sovereignty, control resource flows, and enhance resource value
Wang Yongzhong pointed out that the new round of resource nationalism mainly includes the following methods: first, increasing tax rates or royalty rates; second, implementing expropriation or nationalization of assets; third, renegotiating or terminating existing contracts; fourth, restricting or prohibiting the export of raw ores; fifth, exploring the establishment of production and sales alliances.
The rise of the new round of resource nationalism has brought a strong impact on the stability of the global lithium mine resource supply chain, severely harming the interests of investing countries, trampling on international rules and the spirit of contracts, and causing serious dissatisfaction among investing countries.
For example, in response to Indonesia's nickel ore export ban, a manifestation of resource nationalism, the European Union had already requested consultations with the World Trade Organization (WTO) back in 2019. However, the consultations did not reach an agreement, and in 2021, the EU requested the WTO to establish a dispute resolution expert group, which ultimately ruled that Indonesia's ban violated the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. In 2022, Indonesia appealed again, and in the following years, the litigation between the two parties came to a standstill.
How should Chinese lithium battery companies respond?
For many years, Chinese lithium battery companies have been acquiring mineral resources globally, conducting smelting, processing, and manufacturing domestically, and then exporting the finished products for sale overseas. This trade model has become second nature, giving them absolute discourse power in the global lithium battery materials market.
Now, with more and more countries rich in key lithium battery minerals &#34;flipping the table,&#34; the model of &#34;global mining - China manufacturing - supplying globally&#34; for Chinese lithium battery companies is facing challenges, and the barriers to going abroad have been significantly raised. In the face of this new situation, how should Chinese lithium battery companies respond? Currently, there are three realistic and feasible paths.
The first is to shift from a mining acquisition mindset to rooting locally, achieving long-term mutual benefits with mineral resource countries.
Companies that simply hold mining assets overseas are extremely vulnerable in the current environment of increasing geopolitical risks. Rooting locally means forming a complete industrial chain in resource countries, making oneself an indispensable part of the industrialization of the resource country. The layout of Chinese companies in Indonesia's nickel intermediate processing is the best example.
For instance, GreeNmei (SZ:002340) has laid out a large-scale nickel resource hydrometallurgical project in Indonesia; Huayou Cobalt was one of the first to layout nickel resources in Indonesia, constructing a full industrial chain for nickel, cobalt, and lithium new energy metals; while Zhongwei New Materials (SZ:300919), as a global leader in ternary precursors, has extended its layout to Indonesia's nickel smelting resources, ensuring supply chain security and benefiting from the smelting segment.
Huayou Cobalt's success in Indonesia is not only due to its early entry but also because it has made itself a part of Indonesia's industrialization process—bringing not only capital but also technology, employment, and an industrial chain. This deep embedding is what the resource country government truly wishes to protect.
More importantly, Huayou has also actively introduced local partners with government backgrounds or international strategic investors, first bringing LG Chem into the Indonesian project and later selling part of its equity to Toyota Tsusho. &#34;Equity diversification is a good risk-sharing mechanism,&#34; Huayou Cobalt's Vice President Sun Lihui clearly pointed out.
<img src="https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://inews.gtimg.com/news_bt/O4_5N4XYNfrh1hYeZ2VLh_exGtx8KyOe-l1YzffI9dwbwAA/641?x-oss-process=image/auto-orient,1/interlace,1/resize,w_1440,h_1440/quality,q_95/format,jpg" alt="" original-src="https://imageproxy.pbkrs.com/https://inews.gtimg.com/news_bt/O4_5N4XYNfrh1hYeZ2VLh_exGtx8KyOe-l1YzffI9dwbwAA/641"/> Huayou's nickel resource development project on Indonesia's Halmahera Island (Source: Huayou official website)
The second point is to seek alternative mineral sources, shifting from single-region bets to multi-region hedging.
In the face of tightening policies in resource countries and geopolitical risks, Chinese lithium battery companies need a systematic &#34;combination punch&#34; rather than scattered responses. In particular, they should no longer &#34;bet&#34; on a single country but should build a &#34;composite&#34; resource basket globally.
For example, Ganfeng Lithium has locked in low-cost salt lake resources through controlling projects like PPGS in the core area of the &#34;lithium triangle&#34; in Argentina, and has also acquired high-grade spodumene through the Goulamina project in Mali, Africa; Zhongwei Co., Ltd. has laid out the Jama and Solaroz projects in Argentina, securing over 10 million tons of LCE resources. This layout can effectively hedge against policy or supply risks in a single region.
The third point is the synergy between technological substitution and resource recycling.
As mineral resources become scarcer and prices rise, the most effective approach for Chinese lithium battery companies is to seek answers through technological innovation and explore more alternative solutions. Currently, Chinese companies have systematically reduced their dependence on cobalt in the lithium iron phosphate route; the commercialization of sodium-ion batteries can theoretically further bypass the geopolitical constraints of lithium resources.
In addition, battery recycling is also an important path to self-sufficiency—cobalt, nickel, and lithium can all be efficiently recovered from retired batteries, which is a feasible solution for rebuilding raw material autonomy in the Chinese lithium battery industry chain beyond geopolitical games. As the scale of retired batteries enters an explosive period around 2030, the strategic value of battery recycling will be fully highlighted, becoming a &#34;new mine&#34; for Chinese companies

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China's lithium battery industry faces challenges from mineral resource blockades. Zimbabwe has announced a ban on lithium concentrate exports, affecting the supply chain of Chinese lithium battery companies. Indonesia has also lowered its nickel ore production targets, indicating a rise in global resource nationalism sentiment. Chinese lithium battery companies need to respond to this changing situation by seeking new resource supplies and pricing power to maintain the stability of the industry chain

腾讯新闻 - 财经

Key mineral blockade casts a shadow, how can China's lithium battery resolve the "lifeline dilemma"?