Zijin Mining's lithium business enters a large-scale realization phase: 2028 production capacity target hits 320k tons

Zijin Mining’s 2025 annual report sends a clear industry signal: its lithium business has officially moved from strategic reserves into a phase of large-scale realization.

During the reporting period, the company achieved an equivalent lithium carbonate production volume of 25.5 thousand tonnes, mainly from the Ragotzu in Tibet, Argentina’s 3Q salt lake, Hunan Xiangyuan hard-rock mine, and the newly consolidated Zangge Mining. Although the absolute scale has not yet matched that of the leading lithium players, the quality of its structure is worth paying attention—both Ragotzu and 3Q are low-cost salt-lake lithium extraction routes. The former uses a short-process green technology, while the latter’s initial cash operating cost is as low as 2914 USD/tonne, placing it at the left end of the global cost curve.

More importantly, the key path for capacity jump over the next three years is as follows: the company guides that production in 2026 will increase to 120 thousand tonnes, and in 2028 will reach 270-320 thousand tonnes, representing an increase of more than 11 times versus 2025. The core of the incremental capacity comes from the second-phase expansions of two major salt-lake bases and the centralized ramp-up of the Nord-East Manono project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Among them, the Manono project is planned to start production in June 2026. In that year, it is expected to contribute 30 thousand tonnes, which will become the main source of production volume elasticity in 2026-2027.

On the resource side, the amount of lithium resources controlled by the company ranks among the top globally. Through the acquisition of Zangge Mining, Zijin further consolidates its resource layout across the Qinghai and Tibet salt-lake belts, and also adds potassium resource synergy.

From the perspective of its upstream-to-downstream industrial-chain layout, Zijin has not stopped at the mine-end. The company has enabled the introduction of cathode materials to leading cell manufacturers via Zijin Lithium Yuan, and has also advanced projects supporting lithium salts, lithium iron phosphate, and green power. The safety margin built by low-cost salt-lake assets, combined with the production elasticity brought by the concentrated commissioning of multiple projects, gives Zijin a strong prospect of delivering significant profit elasticity in lithium price upcycles. For the market, this mining giant known for copper and gold is using lithium to write a second growth curve.

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Original statement: This article has been painstakingly produced by SMM Shanghai Metals Market. The author is Zhang Jing. Please respect our copyrights/intellectual property. Without permission, no reprint is allowed. If reprint is needed, please contact the editor in the back end—business cooperation—to obtain reprint authorization. The information provided in this article is for reference only. This article does not constitute a direct recommendation for investment research and decision-making. Any decisions made by customers have nothing to do with Shanghai Metals Market.

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