A World Bank roadmap puts Malawi’s critical mineral exports above $30bn by 2040. The more telling figure is how little of that the state is on course to keep.
James Woods*
When the World Bank formally launched its energy transition minerals roadmap for Malawi in Lilongwe on 22 September, most of the coverage fixed on a single number. The report, From Potential to Prosperity, which the Bank first published in April, estimates that the country’s mines could export more than $30bn of uranium, rutile, graphite, rare earths and other minerals between 2026 and 2040.
For an economy in which mining today contributes less than 1 per cent of output, that is an arresting figure. It is also the least useful number in the document.
The $30bn is cumulative export value over fifteen years. Very little of it will pass through the Malawian treasury. In a footnote that deserves far more attention than it has received, the Bank estimates that, with the current supplier base, only about a third of export value is likely to come back into the country as foreign exchange. An earlier World Bank public finance review put it bluntly: most export earnings will go on capital and operating costs, and much of what remains will be remitted to foreign investors.
The government’s own take is smaller again. In the Bank’s business-as-usual case, three of seven advanced projects go ahead and annual revenue from royalties, corporate tax and import duties levels off at about $400m by 2040. With reform, five go ahead and the figure rises to roughly $600m. The Nation newspaper in Blantyre pointed out that this would exceed what Malawi earned from tobacco, its main export, in 2025. Firas Raad, the Bank’s division director for Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, was careful at the launch to call it a scenario rather than a forecast.
The base is modest. The roadmap puts actual mining revenue in the 2022/23 fiscal year at about $25m. The ninth report of the Malawi Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, released in April, expects about $19m in 2026 even on its most optimistic assumptions. Geology will not close the gap between those numbers and $600m. Contracts, power lines, rail and competent institutions will.
Seven projects, three in the base case
The Bank screened seven advanced projects. Its base case assumes that only three come through: Lotus Resources’ Kayelekera uranium mine, Sovereign Metals’ Kasiya rutile and graphite project, and Lindian Resources’ Kangankunde rare earths project. Reform would add Mkango Resources’ Songwe Hill rare earths project and the Makanjira heavy mineral sands deposit. Kanyika niobium and Malingunde graphite are left out of the projections on risk grounds, although Globe Metals announced the start of early mining at Kanyika on 23 October.
The months since April have borne out that caution. Kayelekera restarted in August 2025 after eleven years on care and maintenance, then lost production this year to a shortage of sulphuric acid, which Lotus linked to conflict in the Middle East, and to a furnace failure at its new acid plant. Its first export, about 144,000lb of uranium oxide in four containers, was still at the mine in mid-October. The route to Orano’s conversion plant in France now runs through Zambia to Walvis Bay, and one Namibian transport permit was outstanding. Lotus has also said some early output fell short of Orano’s specification and that it is looking for other buyers for that material.
Kangankunde is running closer to plan. Lindian says the Stage 1 plant is in the final stretch of construction, with site energisation targeted for the first week of November and first monazite concentrate in December. Kasiya, the world’s largest natural rutile deposit, is the asset international buyers watch most closely. Rio Tinto declined in July to become its operator, though it keeps a stake of about 18 per cent in Sovereign. Sovereign will now build the mine itself, with the IFC lined up as a potential co-lead arranger of its project finance. It still needs a development agreement, binding offtake contracts and a mining licence, which The Nation reported in July was waiting on the government’s freeze on new licences.
The buyers are already lining up behind these projects. Kayelekera uranium is contracted to North American utilities. Lindian intends to process its concentrate at a plant it owns in Kazakhstan. Sovereign has signed non-binding memoranda with Mitsui for rutile and with Traxys North America, one of the traders procuring for Washington’s $12bn Project Vault stockpile, for graphite. Malawi is entering Western supply chains quickly, and the institutions that negotiate and police those relationships will need to keep pace.
Behind the seven sits a second tier of explorers that the roadmap does not model. Fortuna Metals, working ground just south of Kasiya, published a maiden inferred resource of 298m tonnes at 0.87 per cent rutile at its Mkanda project in July. It has since reported rutile below that resource, begun a LiDAR survey in October to support an upgrade to the indicated category and a pre-feasibility study, and started drilling at neighbouring Kampini. In southern Malawi, Chilwa Minerals has more than doubled its Mpyupyu heavy mineral sands resource to 109.6m tonnes and has a scoping study under way. Neither is close to a development decision. The terms Malawi sets for Kasiya and Kangankunde will tell them, and their investors, what the country is offering.
Where the seven projects stand, October 2026
| Project | Mineral | Owner | World Bank case | Standing | Next test |
| Kayelekera | Uranium | Lotus Resources 85%, Government of Malawi 15% | Base | Producing since August 2025. Ramp-up hit by acid shortages and an acid plant fault. First export of about 144,000lb U3O8 awaiting a Namibian transport permit in mid-October. | First shipment; first converter credit expected October or November |
| Kangankunde | Rare earths (monazite) | Lindian Resources | Base | Stage 1 funded and in the final stage of construction. Regulator confirmed in October 2025 that its concentrate counts as local value addition and may be exported. | First concentrate, targeted December 2026 |
| Kasiya | Rutile, graphite | Sovereign Metals (Rio Tinto about 18%) | Base | Feasibility study completed April 2026. Rio Tinto declined operatorship in July. Offtake memoranda with Mitsui and Traxys are non-binding. Scoping study on a heavy rare earth monazite by-product, September 2026. Mining licence pending. | Mining licence, development agreement, peak funding of about $750m (company estimate: about $450m from development finance, $300m from equity and offtake-linked finance) |
| Songwe Hill | Rare earths | Mkango Resources | Reform | Development agreement signed July 2024. Updated feasibility study, March 2026: post-tax NPV $339m, IRR 24%. US DFC development funding; EU Critical Raw Materials Act strategic project. | Construction decision, targeted 2027 |
| Makanjira | Heavy mineral sands (ilmenite, zircon, monazite) | Mawei Mining | Reform | Concession held; no grid power at site. Investigative reporting in February 2026 said control passed to Chinese state-linked companies, apparently without regulatory approval; government promised a fact-finding exercise. | Outcome of government review; power supply |
| Kanyika | Niobium, tantalum | Globe Metals & Mining | Excluded | Development agreement signed July 2024. Early works began January 2026; early mining began 23 October 2026. Bankable feasibility study, April 2026, targets first production in early 2028. Talks with China’s Sinomine on a possible sale of the project company, on a reported non-binding indication of about $80m, disclosed in August. | Funding decision or sale |
| Malingunde | Graphite | NGX | Excluded | Held under a retention licence. Pre-feasibility study 2018, further study work 2021; definitive study planned. | Updated feasibility work |
Sources: World Bank; company disclosures to the ASX, AIM and TSX-V, including Lindian, Sovereign, Mkango and Globe; Mail & Guardian; ICIJ and PIJ Malawi.
The enabling conditions, October 2026
| Area | Item | Standing | Why it matters to mining |
| Power | Mpatamanga hydropower, 358MW | $350m IDA grant approved May 2025. Financial close not yet reached; Egenco expects main contractors to be named by end-2026. | A third of output is allocated to mining |
| Power | Mozambique to Malawi 400kV interconnector | Energised on 8 August 2026 after repeated delays; 5MW imported to test metering. Commercial imports await a tariff agreement. | First link to the Southern African Power Pool; 50MW of initial imports |
| Transport | Limbe to Salima rail rehabilitation | Incomplete | Without it, central and northern mines have no rail route to Nacala |
| Currency | Export proceeds surrender rule | 25 per cent of export earnings, cut from 30 per cent in 2025 | Cited by the Bank as a severe deterrent to investment |
| Regulation | Raw mineral export ban | In force since October 2025; locally processed material exempt | Defines what each project must do in Malawi before export |
| Regulation | Beneficiation and Value Addition Regulations | Draft; consultation closed 10 October 2026 | Will set the processing thresholds |
| Regulation | New mining licences | Issue suspended on 13 February 2026 pending an audit of the registry; still in force | Holds back new licences, including Kasiya’s |
| Fiscal | Model development agreement and statutory cap on state equity | Recommended by the Bank as one-year priorities | Determines terms for Kasiya and later projects |
| Fiscal | Resource rent tax | Suspended in every development agreement signed to date | Leaves no mechanism to share windfall profits |
| Partnership | World Bank Group minerals compact | Malawi named among first eight countries, 16 October 2026 | Priorities: governance, power, transport, skills, local suppliers |
Sources: World Bank; World Bank on Mpatamanga; Egenco via The Nation; Ministry of Energy via The Nation; Reserve Bank of Malawi via allAfrica; Malawi Chamber of Mines and Energy via The Nation; The Nation on the compact.
The binding constraints are above ground
Power comes first. The roadmap puts Malawi’s installed capacity at 551MW, roughly 80 per cent of it hydropower concentrated on one river, the Shire. Technical losses on the grid run at 23 per cent, and in a drought hydro output can fall by as much as 40 per cent. Mpatamanga alone would add the equivalent of about two-thirds of today’s installed capacity, but until it reaches financial close every mine plan in the country carries a power risk that lenders will price.
The roadmap does not settle how much electricity mining will need. Its executive summary says about 120MW of additional supply by 2032. Another chapter says sector demand will exceed 100MW by then, a third that it is likely to exceed 200MW, and the scenario table gives 140MW to 160MW. The figures may rest on different definitions. A utility planning transmission and a bank sizing a power purchase agreement need one number, and it should be published.
The route to the sea is the second constraint. Malawi controls only a small share of the distance to any port, which is why the Kayelekera containers are waiting on a regulator in Namibia. Kasiya and Songwe Hill want to rail bulk product to Nacala, which carries just 8 per cent of Malawi’s trade today. Shipping lines will not add calls without assured volumes, and miners will not commit volumes without reliable sailings. Breaking that circle needs the Limbe to Salima rail section finished and an agreed way of aggregating cargo.
Foreign exchange is the third. The Bank lists the shortage of dollars, the spread between official and parallel rates and the 25 per cent surrender requirement among the severest deterrents to investment in the country. Mines borrow in dollars and must be able to service that debt in dollars.
Skills decide how much of the money stays. Two-thirds of mine jobs will go to technicians and artisans. In 2024, 16 students in Malawi completed Level 4 technician programmes and 50 completed Level 3. The Bank’s public finance review estimates that projects in Malawi take 27 years on average to move from discovery to production, against a global average of 18. Shortening that cycle is worth more than any single concession.
Value addition, fiscal terms and who owns what
Lilongwe wants more of the value chain at home, and it is right to. An executive order in October 2025 barred the export of raw minerals while exempting material processed in Malawi. In his State of the Nation address on 13 February, President Peter Mutharika suspended the issue of new mining licences pending an audit of the registry. Draft Beneficiation and Value Addition Regulations have been out for consultation, which closed on 10 October.
The regulator has already shown how this can work. In October 2025 it confirmed in writing that Kangankunde’s monazite concentrate counts as local value addition, because the ore is upgraded on site before it leaves. The final regulations should turn that ruling into a general rule. The Bank’s warning is that export bans without clear thresholds have a poor record, and that refining rare earths or purifying graphite to battery grade needs proprietary technology and large volumes of cheap power that Malawi cannot yet supply. Zimbabwe, which banned raw mineral and lithium concentrate exports in February, will be a useful test case for the region.
The fiscal terms deserve the same attention. The resource rent tax has been suspended in every mining development agreement signed so far. The basis for valuing minerals for royalties is left to individual agreements, and fixed royalty rates give the state no extra share when prices spike. Most future revenue will come from corporate income tax, which is easier to shift offshore than a royalty, and several of Malawi’s minerals trade so thinly that there is no public benchmark price. The country has no accredited laboratory to verify grades. The Bank also advises against accepting lower royalties in return for larger free-carried equity stakes, which tend to pay late, if at all, because projects repay their lenders first.
Ownership is the last gap. In February an investigation by PIJ Malawi, Finance Uncovered and The Continent reported that control of Mawei Mining, which holds the Makanjira concession, had passed to Chinese state-linked companies without the oversight the law requires. The government has promised a fact-finding exercise. In August, Globe Metals confirmed talks with China’s Sinomine over a possible sale of the company that holds Kanyika. Malawi needs foreign capital and should welcome it from every quarter. It also needs to know, and to approve, who ultimately controls its strategic assets.
One caveat applies to the roadmap itself. The World Bank Group is not a neutral party: the IFC is a co-developer of Mpatamanga and a potential co-lead arranger of Kasiya’s project finance. That does not discredit a careful and candid report, but it is a good reason for Malawi to build its own modelling capacity and to test every projection independently.
What would move the numbers
Most of what is needed is already in the roadmap. The question is order. The next three years matter most, because Kasiya’s terms are likely to be negotiated in that window and Mpatamanga’s financing has to close within it.
The beneficiation rules should name a processing threshold for each commodity, recognise concentrate as the first stage of value addition for rare earths, rutile and graphite, and raise the bar as cheaper power arrives. Investors can price a rising threshold. They cannot price uncertainty about what “raw” means.
The fiscal frame should be fixed before the next agreement is signed rather than renegotiated after it. That means a model development agreement, a cap on state equity written into law, published reference prices for thinly traded minerals, an accredited assay laboratory, and a requirement that any change of control in a mining licence be disclosed and approved.
Power and transport should be treated as mining policy. Mpatamanga’s financial close, mines underwriting transmission as anchor customers, and a corridor arrangement with Mozambique, Zambia and Namibia that aggregates cargo and speeds transit permits would do more for revenue than any change to the royalty rate.
Local content should be built into offtake and finance. Washington, Brussels and Tokyo all want supply from outside China, and they are backing that ambition through Project Vault, the EU’s strategic projects and Japanese trading houses. Malawi can reasonably ask that technician training and credit for local suppliers form part of those packages. That is how the one-third retention figure rises.
Finally, the Bank’s warning about a “presource curse” should become a fiscal rule: no borrowing against mining revenue until it is being collected, and a published, realistic timeline of receipts.
On 16 October Malawi was named among the first eight countries in the World Bank Group’s new minerals partnerships, part of a push to raise the group’s minerals financing and private capital mobilisation to $19bn by 2030, with no specific share earmarked for Malawi. International attention is not the problem. Converting it into public revenue depends on the contracts Malawi signs over the next few years, and those are within its own control.
*James Woods is founder and managing partner of GQI, a geopolitical intelligence and strategic advisory firm, and co-founder of Solivera Holdings, which owns a lapidary in Malawi specialising in the cutting, polishing and faceting of high-value gemstones. He previously served as a senior diplomat at the Embassy of Malawi to Belgium and the European Union, was Country Director at Invest Africa, worked for the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and has served as chief consultant to SureStream Petroleum and RAK Gas. He is a regular commentator on African and global affairs across television, radio and print. He holds an Executive MBA from the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, and is an Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow.