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On 25 February 2026 Zimbabwe's Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, under Minister Polite Kambamura, announced an immediate and indefinite suspension of exports of all unprocessed minerals — including lithium-bearing spodumene concentrates, which had previously been exempt from the country's December 2022 ban on raw lithium ore (Statutory Instrument 213 of 2022). The directive was communicated by ministerial letter dated 17 February 2026 to the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe and copied to lithium producers; the suspension took effect on 25 February and explicitly covered consignments already in transit, with the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) and the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) ordered to halt clearance at the border. The measure brings forward by roughly eleven months a lithium-concentrate export ban that had been telegraphed for January 2027, and broadens it to all raw mineral exports. The Minister cited "national interest", in-country beneficiation, transparency, and prevention of mineral export "leakages" (smuggling and under-invoicing) as the rationale. Bloomberg and Reuters reporting noted under-declaration of grade and value as a proximate trigger; the government later (April 2026) clarified that reinstated exports would require Quota Verification certificates, monthly reporting, on-site assay laboratories, and individual producer-level export ceilings — i.e. the suspension functions as a reset to a quota regime rather than a permanent embargo. Zimbabwe is the world's fifth-largest lithium producer (~6-7% of global supply on a contained-LCE basis) and exported 1.128 million tonnes of spodumene concentrate in 2025 (an 11% YoY increase). The producer base is overwhelmingly Chinese-owned: Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt (Arcadia / Prospect), Sinomine Resource Group (Bikita Minerals), Chengxin Lithium (Sabi Star), and Sichuan Yahua (Kamativi) together account for the majority of output. The ban therefore primarily disrupts Chinese midstream lithium converters in Sichuan and Jiangxi that depend on Zimbabwean spodumene feedstock, while incrementally tightening the global seaborne concentrate market. The action is structurally a continuation of the EM resource-nationalism / upstream-capture template pioneered by Indonesia's nickel-ore ban (2020) and most recently extended by the DRC's ARECOMS cobalt suspension and quota system (Feb-Oct 2025). It reinforces a pattern in which producing-country governments capture processing margin from consuming-country smelters, and it does so in a commodity (lithium) where ex-China refining capacity is still thin, magnifying near-term price impact even though the headline share of global supply removed is moderate.

On 22 February 2025 the Authority for the Regulation and Control of Strategic Mineral Substance Markets (ARECOMS) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo issued Decision No. 001/ARECOMS/2025 imposing a four-month suspension of all cobalt exports — industrial and artisanal — in response to a multi-year cobalt price collapse driven by structural oversupply from CMOC's Tenke Fungurume and Kisanfu mines. The DRC accounts for roughly 70-76% of global mined cobalt, so the ban removed the dominant source of feedstock from the seaborne market. The ban was extended in late June 2025 by another three months, then on 10 October 2025 ARECOMS issued Decision No. 005/ARECOMS/2025 lifting the outright suspension and replacing it with a hard annual export quota: 18,125 t for the November-December 2025 transition window, then 96,600 t per year for 2026 and 2027. The annual ceiling consists of an 87,000 t "base quota" distributed pro-rata using each producer's January 2022 - December 2024 historical export volumes, plus a 9,600 t "strategic quota" allocated at ARECOMS' sole discretion to projects of national strategic importance. Allocations for Q4 2025 went disproportionately to the largest incumbents: CMOC received 6,500 t (Tenke Fungurume + Kisanfu), Glencore 3,925 t (Kamoto + Mutanda), and Eurasian Resources Group 2,125 t (Metalkol). CMOC's award is far below its ~115 kt 2024 production rate, structurally capping the world's top cobalt producer below 30% of its operating capacity. Exporters must obtain a Quota Verification Certificate (AVQ) from ARECOMS, submit to joint sampling, weighing, sealing and physical inspection by multiple government agencies, and prepay the 10% mining royalty within 48 hours of declaring origin and sale. ARECOMS reserves the right to revise quotas quarterly in case of "significant imbalance in the cobalt market," and explicitly retained discretion to re-set 2027 volumes. The measure is the EM resource-nationalism complement to Indonesia's nickel-ore ban template, applied to the single material where one country has the most concentrated global supply share.

Indonesia's Ministry of Trade promulgated Peraturan Menteri Perdagangan (Permendag) No. 10 of 2024 on 30 May 2024, amending Permendag 22/2023 on Goods Prohibited for Export. The regulation set 31 December 2024 as the final cutoff for copper-concentrate and anode-sludge exports — extending the original 1 June 2024 ban deadline by seven months — and enforced a full prohibition starting 1 January 2025. The measure is paired with ESDM Regulation No. 6 of 2024 covering the upstream mining-product side, completing the legal architecture of Indonesia's copper "hilirisasi" (downstream-isation) mandate. The ban forces all domestically mined copper concentrate to be smelted and refined inside Indonesia. Two operators are directly affected: PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI), majority-owned by state holding MIND ID with Freeport-McMoRan as minority partner, which operates the Grasberg mine in Papua and the new Manyar/Gresik smelter in JIIPE; and PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara (subsidiary of PT Amman Mineral Internasional, IDX:AMMN), which operates the Batu Hijau mine in Sumbawa with a smelter under commissioning. A fire at Freeport's Gresik smelter in October 2024 disrupted ramp-up and forced the government to grant a discretionary export-permit extension into 2025 for PTFI, signalling that the ban — while now legally in force — is being enforced flexibly during smelter commissioning rather than as a hard stop. Permendag 10/2024 is the copper-sector equivalent of the 2020 nickel- ore export ban (ESDM 11/2019) and the planned bauxite-ore ban (effective June 2023). Together these three measures complete Indonesia's resource-nationalism package across its three highest-value mineral exports: nickel, bauxite, and copper. Combined domestic smelter capex commitments tied to the copper rule (Freeport Manyar + Amman Sumbawa) total ~USD 6 billion. Indonesia's Finance Ministry estimated forgone export revenue of ~Rp 10 trillion (~USD 640 million per year) from the copper-concentrate ban alone, which the government is treating as an acceptable downstream-policy cost. Severity is set at 4: the action is binding, durable, and reshapes a globally relevant supply chain (Indonesia is ~5% of global mined copper, rising), but discretionary export extensions during smelter commissioning soften near-term enforcement and limit the immediate market shock relative to the harder 2020 nickel rule.

Statutory Instrument 5 of 2023, gazetted by Zimbabwe's Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, banned the export of unbeneficiated ("raw" / unprocessed) base mineral ores from Zimbabwe, widening the December 2022 lithium-only export ban (SI 213 of 2022) into a horizontal ban covering the entire base-minerals category — including lithium, chrome, copper, nickel and coal — while excluding precious metals, precious stones, oil and natural gas. Exporters need a written ministerial permit, granted only where compelling reasons show the ore cannot be beneficiated inside Zimbabwe, or for small assay samples. Non-compliance carries a level-9 fine or twice the mineral's value (whichever is greater), up to two years' imprisonment, or both. SI 5 was itself amended three months later by SI 57 of 2023, which layered lithium-specific citizenship and beneficiation-plant conditions onto this base order.

Indonesia banned the export of raw bauxite ore (including washed bauxite) effective 10 June 2023, extending the "hilirisasi" (downstream-isation) doctrine that previously prohibited nickel-ore exports (effective 1 January 2020) to the country's second-largest mineral export. The ban is implemented through the existing Mining Law framework (UU 3/2020 amending UU 4/2009) and operationalised via Ministry of Trade Regulation Permendag 18/2022 on Provisions for Mining-Product Exports. President Joko Widodo formally announced the bauxite-export-ban schedule on 21 December 2022, citing forecast revenue uplift from IDR 21 trillion to IDR 62 trillion (~USD 1.35bn → ~USD 3.9bn) once domestic alumina/ aluminium refining ramps.

Indonesia accelerated the implementation of its raw nickel ore export ban, originally scheduled for 2022, to take effect on 1 January 2020. Announced 30 August 2019 by Minister Ignasius Jonan via ESDM Regulation No. 11/2019, the ban prohibits the export of nickel ore with grades below 1.7% Ni (effectively all Indonesian saprolite and limonite ore that previously flowed to Chinese stainless-steel and ferronickel mills) and forces ore to be processed domestically into intermediate products (nickel pig iron, ferronickel, mixed hydroxide precipitate, nickel sulfate). The policy is part of the long-running "hilirisasi" (downstream-isation) strategy and was the trigger for the >$30B wave of Chinese-led nickel- processing investment in Sulawesi (Morowali, Weda Bay) that has since made Indonesia the dominant global nickel producer.