Tembo Nickel Corporation
Kabanga nickel project
The Kabanga sulphide nickel project, held by a state-partnered vehicle and pitched as a battery-metals refinery anchor rather than a concentrate exporter.
- Structure
- Lifezone Metals majority / Government of Tanzania 16%
- Deposit
- High-grade nickel sulphide
- Plan
- Mine plus domestic hydromet refinery at Kahama
- Current status
- Development
Why it matters
Kabanga is the region's most credible battery-metals development, and the requirement to refine in-country tests whether Tanzania's beneficiation policy can be financed rather than merely legislated.
What the project is
Kabanga in Kagera is one of the largest undeveloped nickel sulphide deposits anywhere, held by Tembo Nickel — a joint venture in which the Tanzanian state holds a sixteen per cent free-carried interest. Plans pair an underground mine with a hydrometallurgical refinery near Kahama.
Development has been stop-start for three decades as ownership changed hands and nickel prices swung; the current structure dates from the licence reissue in 2021.
Community and land record
The deposit lies in a densely settled farming district near the Burundian border, so resettlement scale and compensation rates will define the project's social record long before first metal.
Sulphide mining brings acid drainage risk, and the refinery adds reagent handling and residue storage questions that Tanzania has not previously regulated at this scale.
Compiled from public licence records, government statements and Bulletin reporting. A profile is not an endorsement. Corrections: newsroom@mineralbulletin.com