• Artisanal and small-scale miners reduced deliveries to Fidelity Gold Refinery, with a 30.8% month-on-month decline, while large-scale miners increased deliveries by 24.6%
• Despite March's decline, ASM deliveries rose 12% year-on-year to 6,5 tonnes, accounting for 69.9% of total Q1 deliveries
• The suspension of ZiG retention requirement for gold producers aim to boost delivery volumes, but the sector faces challenges meeting the 50-tonne national target for 2026

Harare- Zimbabwe's gold deliveries in March reached 2.854 tonnes , a decline of 16.4%  against the 3.413 tonnes (3,412.95 kilograms) registered in February, as artisanal and small-scale miners sharply reduced deliveries to Fidelity Gold Refinery in a month defined as much by policy upheaval as by seasonal production patterns.

The March figure marks a notable weakening in the final month of the first quarter, tempering what had otherwise been a positive start to the year relative to the same period in 2025.
The month-on-month contraction was driven almost entirely by the small-scale segment. Artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM) delivered 1,748.70 kilograms, down from 2,525.65 kilograms in February, a decline of 30.8% that accounted for the bulk of the aggregate shortfall.

On a year-on-year basis, ASM deliveries in March were 6.2% below the 1,864.99 kilograms recorded in March 2025, placing the segment in negative territory against both prior-month and prior-year comparatives simultaneously.

The magnitude of the ASM retreat is significant given that the segment has historically provided the foundation of Zimbabwe's gold mobilisation volumes, contributing the greater share of total national deliveries in any given period.
Large-scale miners offered a contrasting picture. Deliveries from the formal mining segment rose to 1,105.31 kilograms in March, up 24.6% from the 887.30 kilograms delivered in February and 14% above the 969.28 kilograms posted in March 2025. The large-scale segment therefore strengthened on both a monthly and annual basis, reflecting the relative operational stability of capital-intensive producers whose output schedules are less sensitive to short-term policy or incentive shifts.

The divergence between the two segments in March is analytically important, it exposes the extent to which ASM delivery behaviour is tied to prevailing retention and pricing conditions rather than raw production capacity.
For the first quarter of 2026, total gold deliveries reached 9,311.92 kilograms, an increase of 8.2% against the 8,599.10 kilograms recorded across the same period in 2025. The year-on-year growth is a constructive outcome that demonstrates underlying momentum in the sector, particularly within the small-scale segment where structural improvements in formalisation and access to Fidelity's buying infrastructure have been building over several years.
The ASM sector delivered 6,510.91 kilograms across the first quarter, a 12% increase on the Q1 2025 figure of 5,770.86 kilograms. This growth confirms the artisanal segment's expanding contribution to the formal delivery channel and reflects the cumulative effect of policy incentives that were in place through much of the quarter. Small-scale miners now account for approximately 69.9% of total Q1 2026 deliveries, reinforcing the sector's structural dependence on this segment for the achievement of national targets.
Large-scale miners delivered 2,801.01 kilograms in Q1 2026, fractionally below the 2,828.24 kilograms delivered in Q1 2025, representing a year-on-year decline of 1%.

The marginal contraction is not alarming in isolation but it does point to limited volume growth from established producers, suggesting that incremental national delivery gains will continue to be sourced from the ASM segment rather than from the large-scale tier for the foreseeable term.
The Q1 2026 aggregate of 9,311.92 kilograms, however, must be read against the final quarter of 2025. Total deliveries in Q4 2025 reached a level from which Q1 2026 represents a contraction of 30.1%. Within that, ASM deliveries in Q4 2025 stood at 10,345.95 kilograms, making Q1 2026's 6,510.91 kilograms a quarterly decline of 37.1%.

Large-scale deliveries fell 6.2% from 2,985.02 kilograms in Q4 2025 to 2,801.01 kilograms in Q1 2026. The quarter-on-quarter comparison reflects normal seasonality to a degree, as Q4 typically benefits from the full-year production push ahead of the December close, but the scale of the ASM pullback in Q1 also aligns with the unresolved tension around the ZiG retention policy that reached its most acute phase in March.

The single most consequential policy development affecting the sector in the quarter was the government's suspension of the ZiG retention requirement for gold producers, which took effect on 24 March 2026. Under the arrangement that had been in force, small-scale gold miners were required to receive 10% of their delivery proceeds in ZiG, Zimbabwe's gold-backed domestic currency, with the remaining 90% paid in United States dollars. The policy was designed to support ZiG circulation and liquidity in the domestic economy by ensuring that a portion of gold sale proceeds re-entered the local currency system.

The 10% ZiG component was not trivial in behavioural terms. For ASM operators, whose cost structures are predominantly domestic in nature, covering labour, consumables and local logistics, the ZiG allocation carried practical utility. However, it also introduced an implicit discount on effective realisations when ZiG traded at a discount to the US dollar in informal markets, which has been a recurring feature of the currency's operation since its introduction.

The perception of a ZiG penalty, whether or not it was quantitatively material at official rates, was sufficient to shape delivery decisions at the margin, particularly among informal and semi-formal miners who retain the greatest flexibility in choosing when and through which channel to sell.
The suspension of the policy on 24 March 2026 effectively moved to a full USD payout structure, removing the ZiG component entirely from the delivery incentive calculation. The timing and the pace of the ASM pullback in March suggest that miners were aware of the impending change and may have deferred deliveries in anticipation of receiving full USD terms. This would account for a portion of the 30.8% month-on-month decline in ASM volumes during March, as the sharpness of the drop is difficult to attribute entirely to production-side factors within a single calendar month.

The policy reversal reflects a broader tension that has run through Zimbabwe's gold sector management since the introduction of the ZiG. Authorities have sought to use the gold procurement channel as a mechanism to inject ZiG into circulation and validate the currency's gold-backing narrative.

Miners, by contrast, have consistently demonstrated a preference for the highest possible USD realisation, which is the natural orientation of producers operating in a commodity sector where international prices are denominated in US dollars and where memories of local currency erosion remain acute. The suspension represents a concession to that preference, prioritising delivery volumes over currency policy objectives, at least in the near term.
Zimbabwe's government has set a national gold delivery target of 50 tonnes for 2026. The Q1 2026 total of 9,311.92 kilograms, which converts to approximately 9.31 tonnes, places the country at 18.6% of that annual objective after the first three months of the year. A linear quarterly pace sufficient to meet the 50-tonne target would require approximately 12,500 kilograms per quarter. The current run-rate therefore sits roughly 25.5% below the required quarterly pace, indicating that a meaningful acceleration in delivery volumes will be necessary to keep the target within reach.
The underlying direction of the sector remains positive. The 8.2% year-on-year improvement in Q1 aggregate deliveries, driven by ASM growth of 12.8% over the same period, confirms that formalisation efforts are bearing measurable results and that the volume base is expanding.

The challenge for the balance of 2026 is whether the pace of that expansion can be accelerated sufficiently to bridge the gap to the 50-tonne target, in an operating environment where the policy framework has been in active transition and where the artisanal segment, which carries the greatest delivery potential, has shown itself to be the most sensitive to incentive conditions.

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