While Benchmark Minerals Intelligence analysts have long been predicting the lithium commodity price will return to COVID levels in CY28, lately, the level of excitement felt gives the sense that we’ve already returned.
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Lithium benchmarks quietly climbed upward through late CY25 and into January CY26 as the metals everything rally (commodity supercycle?) picked up lithium in its tornado-like grasp, before dropping it off in a field earlier this month like some star-crossed cow.
Enter, then, the latest not-quite-black-swan event to grace the juncture of geopolitics and supply chains: Zimbabwe, which provided around 10% of global lithium supply in 2024, has shut the world off from its battery metal riches. No more lithium exports from Zimbabwe at this current time.
Do not pass go and do not collect $200, unless you’re invested in pretty much any lithium major on the ASX that isn’t Liontown (ASX:LTR), which saw LG Energy divest its stake in the company via an A$400M+ block trade and so is down today.
Case in point: Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) (yes, I know it’s called PLS Group now, but I also still call ‘X’ Twitter) has jumped over +6.5% to hit $5.19 a share – more or less on par with its all-time high of $5.42/sh, if you squint.
Also ascending are MinRes (ASX:MIN) (currently @ $60.80/sh); IGO Ltd (ASX:IGO) ($9.04/sh), and Core Lithium (ASX:CXO) is up over +7% (26.3cps).
So why has Zimbabwe stopped exporting lithium? Well, it’s actually stopped exporting minerals. Probably the best way to understand the why is to sidestep local intricacies and look back to CY17 – the government that came to power did so via a coup.
Unfortunately, it’s another case of an African nation acting like an African nation. At least for its part, Zimbabwe sits outside the Sahel “coup belt,” and at least the last leader deposed was the widely disliked Robert Mugabe.
Probably a more important question is whether this structurally changes the lithium market. Most of Zimbabwe’s lithium goes to China. While the country holds Africa’s largest lithium reserves, it now wants to refine and process them in-country – a sensible plan so long as there’s political will, financial support, and know-how. The world will need to stay tuned to find out how that goes.
What China does, here, is also probably of interest to most with skin in the game, seeing as Zimbabwe’s spodumene output in recent history has basically been backed by Chinese capital and Zimbabwe’s current government has asked miners to abide by the rules – which sounds a lot like asking Chinese mining companies to choose between two governments. No pressure.
Of course, commodities traders have seen quick money here, so the price of lithium carbonate futures has climbed over +6% in the last ~24 hours, bringing 1Y returns to +113%. Which sounds impressive.
But when it comes to the lithium price, residual hype re-heating in the zeitgeist like last night’s pasta in the microwave, and the overall positioning of lithium in the CY26 Q1 Is-It-Or-Is-It-Not-A-Commodities-Supercycle – well, there’s a chart I like to bring up.
Not to be a buzzkill, but zooming out to a 5Y view can offer some context. Here’s what lithium’s price performance over that time looks like on a line chart.
Make of that chart what you will. What do I make of it? Well, all these years, and it still looks kind of like a cat. It makes me want to say “meow,” but maybe not “wow.”
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