Mozambique’s President Daniel Chapo has signed a new law requiring \u200c15% state ownership in all mining ventures and local processing of minerals, tightening control over its resources as demand for battery materials grows.<\/p>\n
Mozambique is the world’s third-largest graphite producer, a \u200bkey material used in batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage.<\/p>\n
The mining \u200blaw, approved by Parliament in May, aims to strengthen Mozambique’s “management \u2060of strategic resources in defence of the national interest,” according to a government \u200bnotice dated June 3.<\/p>\n
“The state, through the National Mining Company (ENM), shall have a minimum, \u200bfree\u2011carried and non\u2011dilutable participation of 15% in all mining projects, at any stage of the value chain,” reads part of the new law seen by Reuters on Thursday.<\/p>\n
It was not \u200bimmediately clear whether the new rules would apply to existing mines, which are \u200bmostly covered by long-term agreements.<\/p>\n
The mines ministry was not immediately available to comment.<\/p>\n
The move places Mozambique \u200camong \u2060a growing number of African countries, including top continental\u00a0lithium producer Zimbabwe\u00a0and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s leading\u00a0cobalt producer and major global copper supplier, which are tightening control over raw exports for greater economic benefit from their resources.<\/p>\n
Mozambique \u200bhas one of \u200bthe largest graphite \u2060deposits in the world at\u00a0Syrah Resources’\u00a0Balama operations in the north of the country. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, \u200bChina and Madagascar are the top two producers.<\/p>\n
The world’s largest \u200bruby mine, \u2060Montepuez, owned by Gemfields, is also located in northern Mozambique and the country also has significant coal assets previously owned by Rio Tinto and Brazil’s Vale.<\/p>\n
The new regulations \u2060prohibit \u200bthe export of unprocessed or semi\u2011processed mineral products, \u200bexcept where they are covered by a specific ministerial authorisation, based on approved plans to eventually process \u200blocally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mozambique’s President Daniel Chapo has signed a new law requiring \u200c15% state ownership in all mining ventures and local processing of minerals, tightening control over its resources as demand for battery materials grows. Mozambique is the world’s third-largest graphite producer, a \u200bkey material used in batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage. The mining \u200blaw, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,32,2362,3028],"tags":[2455,71],"class_list":["post-21057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-economy","category-featured","category-mining","tag-daniel-chapo","tag-mozambique"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21058,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21057\/revisions\/21058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}