Zimbabwe delivered a record 46.7 tonnes of gold in 2025, up from 36.5 tonnes the year before, and the companies that dominate the industry’s history contributed almost none of the increase. Large-scale miners actually delivered less than in 2024: 11.8 tonnes against 12.7. The record belongs to small-scale miners, who sold 34.9 tonnes to Fidelity Gold Refinery, roughly three quarters of the national total.
That inversion is the single most important fact about Zimbabwean gold today, and it reshapes what the formal mine registry means. The listed and state-owned producers are no longer the volume story. They are the investment story, because every credible path to growing formal output runs through a short list of named projects. Here is who owns what, and what each owner is building.
What is Zimbabwe’s biggest gold mine?
Blanket Mine near Gwanda, owned by Caledonia Mining, produced 76,213 ounces in 2025, the largest output of any single formal gold mine in the country. Caledonia met guidance in 2024 with 76,656 ounces and nearly tripled its profit in 2025 on record bullion prices.
Blanket’s real significance is what it funds. In November 2025 Caledonia’s board approved development of Bilboes, an open-pit project north of Bulawayo with reserves of 1.75 million ounces. First production is targeted for late 2028, with around 200,000 ounces in the first full year of 2029. If built to plan, Bilboes alone would out-produce every existing formal mine in Zimbabwe and make Caledonia the country’s largest gold producer by a wide margin. Next door, its Motapa exploration ground returned hits like 19 metres at 8.08 grams per tonne in 2025, with a maiden resource expected later in 2026.
Who owns Zimbabwe’s gold mines?
Four ownership blocks cover most of the formal sector. Caledonia (NYSE American listed) holds Blanket and the Bilboes-Motapa growth pipeline. The state, through the Mutapa Investment Fund, took 100 percent of Kuvimba Mining House in 2024, and with it Freda Rebecca, Shamva and Jena. A December 2025 reorganisation dissolved Kuvimba into commodity clusters. Padenga Holdings, via its fully acquired Dallaglio unit, runs Eureka and Pickstone-Peerless. And Namib Minerals, which listed on Nasdaq in June 2025 through a SPAC merger, holds the former Metallon trio: How Mine, plus the suspended Mazowe and Redwing.
Zimbabwe’s gold market, mapped
AMIQ tracks Zimbabwe’s producers and projects with verified ownership and contacts.
Mine by mine: the formal producers
- Blanket (Caledonia): 76,213 ounces in 2025. The benchmark.
- Eureka (Padenga/Dallaglio, Guruve): 1,969 kilograms in 2025, about 63,000 ounces, up 9 percent, with mine life extended to 2039. Padenga’s group output of 2,564 kilograms made it the country’s number two formal producer, a position it took from Caledonia in 2024.
- Freda Rebecca (Mutapa/ex-Kuvimba, Bindura): the state flagship, around 71,700 ounces in the year to March 2024, with 38 million dollars committed to lift it further.
- How Mine (Namib Minerals, Bulawayo): 36,600 ounces in 2024, the only producing asset behind the Nasdaq listing.
- Shamva (Mutapa): 7 million dollars allocated for the year to March 2026, targeting 24,000 ounces, with the larger Shamva Hill open pit now planned in phases. Mutapa is seeking 150 million dollars for Shamva and 100 million for Jena.
- Renco (RioZim, Masvingo): restarted September 2025 under contract mining with Chinese contractor FeiFan after a long stoppage. RioZim itself remains in deep financial distress, with court battles over corporate rescue still running in 2026.
- Cam and Motor (RioZim, Kadoma): holder of a modern biological-oxidation plant but suspended during the group’s cash crunch. Dewatering is complete and a restart is targeted for the second half of 2026.
Why do small-scale miners produce most of Zimbabwe’s gold?
Three forces. Record gold prices pulled labour into artisanal workings. The Reserve Bank, which backs the ZiG currency with bullion, pays promptly through Fidelity, the sole legal buyer, making the official channel worth using. And the formal sector spent a decade underinvested, with RioZim’s distress the clearest example. Small-scale output is real production, but it is informal, mobile and hard for suppliers to sell into. How that sector works across the continent is covered in our small-scale mining in Africa guide.
The currency that runs on the mines
Zimbabwe’s gold is not just an export, it is the monetary base. The ZiG currency launched in 2024 is backed by the Reserve Bank’s bullion and reserves, part of the national royalty is collected in physical gold, and exporters surrender a portion of their dollar earnings at the official rate. For the mines this cuts both ways: prompt payment through Fidelity made the official channel attractive enough to pull small-scale production into it, while surrender requirements tax the dollar economics of every formal producer. Any supplier contracting with a Zimbabwean miner should price with those currency mechanics in view, because the customer’s cash flow lives inside them.
Selling to the small-scale majority
Three quarters of the country’s gold comes from a sector with no procurement office, but that does not make it unreachable. Small-scale miners buy constantly: stamp mills and ball mills, pumps, compressors, generators, PPE and, increasingly, mercury-free recovery equipment. They just buy through dealers, town-level distributors and milling centres rather than tenders. The winning model looks like retail, spare parts on the shelf in Bulawayo and Kadoma, not a bid document. It is lower-margin, higher-volume work, and in Zimbabwe it addresses the biggest slice of the market.
Power: the constraint under everything
Zimbabwe’s grid struggles, and the mining industry has effectively built itself a private lane through it: large operations pay premium dollar tariffs for firm supply as intensive energy users, back it with diesel and growing solar, and plan around Kariba’s hydrology like everyone else in the region. Every new build on the growth list, Bilboes above all, carries a power solution in its capital plan, and generation, grid connection and storage are as much a part of Zimbabwe’s mining procurement as mills and reagents.
Where the formal growth comes from
Four named projects carry essentially all of it: Bilboes construction toward late 2028, the Mazowe and Redwing restarts under Namib’s plan of up to 400 million dollars, Shamva Hill’s phased build, and Cam and Motor’s second-half 2026 return. Each is a defined procurement pipeline, from earthworks and plant refurbishment to reagents and power. AMIQ tracks 2,200+ African mining projects, with the owners’ and engineers’ verified contacts attached. Zimbabwe’s short list is exactly the kind of market where knowing the six people who matter beats knowing sixty who do not. The detail is available through AMIQ, and the continental picture sits at gold mining in Africa.
Frequently asked questions
How much gold does Zimbabwe produce?
Deliveries to Fidelity Gold Refinery reached a record 46.7 tonnes in 2025, up from 36.5 tonnes in 2024. Small-scale miners accounted for 34.9 tonnes, about 75 percent, while large-scale mines delivered 11.8 tonnes.
Who is the largest gold producer in Zimbabwe?
By single formal mine, Caledonia’s Blanket at 76,213 ounces in 2025. By group output, Padenga Holdings led the formal sector with 2,564 kilograms across Eureka and Pickstone-Peerless. By share of national deliveries, the small-scale sector dwarfs both.
What is the Bilboes gold project?
A Caledonia-owned open-pit development north of Bulawayo, approved in November 2025: reserves of 1.75 million ounces, first production targeted for late 2028, and around 200,000 ounces in its first full year, which would make it Zimbabwe’s largest gold mine.
What is the ZiG currency?
Zimbabwe Gold, the currency launched in April 2024, backed by the Reserve Bank’s bullion and reserve holdings. It ties the monetary system directly to gold deliveries, which is one reason the state pays miners promptly through Fidelity, the sole legal buyer.
Can suppliers sell to small-scale gold miners?
Yes, but through a retail model rather than tenders: mills, pumps, generators and PPE move through town-level dealers and milling centres. The sector has no procurement offices, yet it buys equipment constantly and accounts for most of the country’s gold.
