Three copper builds worth a billion dollars or more are under way in Zambia at the same time. Guinea shipped its first Simandou iron ore late in 2025 from a deposit the industry waited 27 years to unlock. And gold above 4,100 dollars an ounce is pushing West African projects to construction decisions that looked marginal two years ago. Africa’s project pipeline is the busiest it has been in a decade, and the work is concentrated in a handful of places that reward close attention.
If you supply mining in Africa, the pipeline is your order book two years early. Here is where it stands in 2026 and what is driving it.
How big is Africa’s mining project pipeline in 2026?
AMIQ tracks 2,200+ mining projects across the continent, from early exploration to operating mines, and the development end of that pipeline is growing. Exploration budgets for Africa rose 11 percent to about 1.44 billion dollars in 2025, per S&P Global data, even as global spending fell for a third straight year. The money that finds the next generation of mines is choosing Africa over other regions.
The capital behind construction is larger still. Zambia alone has three copper builds in the 1 to 2 billion dollar range running concurrently. Add Simandou’s rail and port complex in Guinea, Endeavour’s 1.06 billion dollar Assafou gold project in Côte d’Ivoire and a wave of lithium plant construction in Zimbabwe, and the continent is carrying more simultaneous major builds than at any point since the last commodity supercycle.
Which commodities dominate the new projects?
Copper leads by capital committed. Global copper exploration spending hit 3.27 billion dollars in 2025, a 12 year high, and much of the development money lands in the DRC and Zambia. Barrick is spending 2 billion dollars on the Lumwana Super Pit expansion for first production in 2028. First Quantum’s 1.25 billion dollar Kansanshi S3 expansion delivered first ore in July 2025, ahead of schedule, on its way to 210,000 to 240,000 tonnes a year by 2027. KoBold Metals broke ground on Mingomba, reported at around 2 billion dollars and targeting some 300,000 tonnes a year in the early 2030s, the largest greenfield copper investment in Zambian history. Across the border, Ivanhoe’s Kamoa-Kakula complex produced its first copper anodes from a new 500,000 tonne smelter in December 2025, with guidance of 380,000 to 420,000 tonnes of copper for 2026.
Iron ore delivered the decade’s single biggest event. Simandou’s first shipment left Guinea in late 2025, and the twin operations ramp toward a combined 120 million tonnes a year by around 2028, adding roughly 8 to 9 percent to global seaborne supply. Gold, uranium and battery minerals fill out the picture, from Global Atomic’s Dasa in Niger targeting first uranium production in 2026 to Lifezone’s Kabanga nickel project in Tanzania working toward an investment decision this year.
Why are gold projects reaching construction now?
Because the price rewrote the maths. Endeavour’s Assafou feasibility study, published in April 2026, values the project at 2.1 billion dollars at a 2,500 dollar gold price and 5.1 billion at 4,000 dollars. With gold trading above 4,100 dollars, deposits that sat in feasibility for years now clear their investment hurdles with room to spare, which is why construction decisions are clustering in 2025 and 2026. West African Resources poured first gold at Kiaka in Burkina Faso in mid 2025 and is targeting group production above 420,000 ounces a year. Endeavour aims to take its own decision on Assafou before the end of 2026, with a two year build to follow.
The West African gold belt captures most of this wave, though the money is rotating within the region. Côte d’Ivoire overtook the DRC as Africa’s top exploration destination in 2025 while Mali recorded the continent’s sharpest decline, a direct read on how fiscal terms and security shape where projects get built.
What is driving the pipeline beyond prices?
Infrastructure is unlocking deposits that were stranded for decades. The Lobito Corridor to the Atlantic and the Chinese-backed TAZARA rehabilitation to the Indian Ocean both cut the logistics cost that held back Copperbelt expansions, and Simandou only exists because someone finally built its 600 kilometre railway. Processing mandates matter too. Zimbabwe’s push against raw concentrate exports has Bikita Minerals commissioning Africa’s largest lithium sulphate plant in 2026, with Huayou’s Arcadia plant close behind, turning policy pressure into construction contracts.
The caution in the numbers is that brownfield spending set a record in 2025 while grassroots exploration fell to an all time low share. Owners prefer expanding known deposits over hunting new ones, which concentrates near term work around existing mining districts rather than frontier ground.
What this means if you supply the industry
Every project in this pipeline is a sequence of purchases. Feasibility work buys drilling, assays and engineering studies. Construction buys civils, steel, plant, piping and power. Ramp-up buys consumables, maintenance and logistics, and each stage has different people signing. The supplier who knows a project’s phase and its decision makers before the tender lands is the one who wins the work, which is what project intelligence is for.
AMIQ tracks each of these projects with verified owner, engineer and procurement contacts, updated by our research team as projects move through the pipeline. See what is coming in new mining projects, or join AMIQ and follow the full pipeline project by project.
Frequently asked questions
Which African country has the most mining projects under construction?
Zambia currently carries the heaviest construction load, with the 2 billion dollar Lumwana expansion, the 1.25 billion dollar Kansanshi S3 and the Mingomba greenfield build all running at once, alongside continuing expansion at Kamoa-Kakula across the DRC border.
What is the biggest new mining project in Africa?
Simandou in Guinea. The iron ore complex shipped first ore in late 2025 and is ramping toward roughly 120 million tonnes a year by 2028, enough to expand global seaborne iron ore supply by around 8 to 9 percent.
Is mining investment in Africa growing?
Yes. African exploration budgets rose 11 percent to about 1.44 billion dollars in 2025 while global spending fell, and multiple billion dollar construction projects are running concurrently in copper, iron ore, gold and battery minerals.
