Coal miner to invest $34 million in Zimbabwe operation

Coal miner Liberation Mining this year expects to invest about $34 million to kick start commercial operations, producing 100 000 tonnes per month, Mines and Mining Development permanent secretary, Munesu Munodawafa, has said.

“We have new mines that are opening. In the Gwayi area we have seen the opening of the Liberation Mine. It’s a coal mine that will initially produce about 100 000 tonnes of coal per month,” Munodawafa said in a presentation at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe (ICAZ) conference held concurrently with the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair.

“Total investment if everything goes according to plan would be about $34 million for this year and then it will scale up until we have a total investment of about $250 million over the next five years.”

The mining firm is one of the 20 entities which were awarded a Special Grant by the government to explore and extract coal and coal bed methane gas in the Hwange-Lupane area in 2010.

But eight years down the line the mine is yet to start commercial operations which it blamed on changing regulatory requirements.

Munodawafa told the conference that mining is expected to contribute more than 70 percent of the country’s foreign currency earnings in 2018, same as in the prior year.

“We are about 13% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a mining sector. For the year 2017, the mining sub-sector contributed about 70% of all the foreign currency that was earned by the country. In terms of performance, the minerals that performed well we have gold, platinum group of minerals. We don’t expect the numbers to be any worse this year,” he said.

According to the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe, mineral revenue is projected to reach $2.5 billion this year up from $2.3 billion last year, on higher production from gold and platinum miners.

Gold output is seen at a new high of 30 tonnes while Platinum production is seen rising to 15.5 tonnes this year from 14.2 tonnes in 2017 as producers ramp up production.

The industry requires around $777 million to optimise production, with $401 million needed for sustaining operations and $376 million for replacement and expansion capital, the Chamber has said previously. – The Source

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