Coming to the beneficiation issue, you would find that these coal deposits or other minerals differ in particles. We might have gold but some will fall under 75% or 95%. If you go to Shamva or Mazowe, their grades are 99%. If you go to Masvingo it is 85% – same with coal and gas, they do not hold the same particles. The beneficiation process then differs with what is happening in South Africa. You cannot put the same plant that SASSOL is using here because the type of coal that we have has got different particles with the SASSOL one. Our Government is well versed with that and I am happy that the last time I spoke to the Minister, he was very aware of the situation and kind of coal that we have.
This is why you see when we wanted to beneficiate our platinum, it sounded like Government did not want or Government was not pushing the companies or Government was benefiting from that process; no it is about the concept on beneficiating, the type of a plant because most of these minerals are PGMs that we have in the country. There is no mineral in the country that is not a PGM. You will find that the process becomes cumbersome because you then need a plant that separates the particles from the initial thing that we are targeting whereby the general populace will be expecting Zambezi Gas to do a beneficiation project but you would find the same mineral and concept can cost 200 million in South Africa to build a plant but if you then come to Zimbabwe, because of the particles that are associated with that stone, that plant can go as far as 400 million because it is the concept of the beneficiation.
These are things that we hope Government will address because we cannot grow the economy if we still take our minerals as raw – that is definitely something we have to attend to. If you go to Mozambique, three quarters of the harbour is attending to Zimbabwean minerals and they are being taken raw. Right now we have not done any processing in the mining industry – be it even the gold, we are just taking our gold out. We are doing rings or anything or beneficiating the gold which is now costing us a lot of money because the same kilogram of gold that cost 50 000 can cost over 100 000 after beneficiating but because we are not taking that route, it is costing Government millions and billions of dollars.
I would want to thank Hon. Khupe for the motion and I hope that Government will take heed to this motion and make sure that they expedite the process of beneficiation. I am happy that Hon. Gabbuza mentioned the Muzarabani project. If you look at this project, Zimbabwe’s Muzarabani project is sitting on what we call the ‘old Creighton’ or old formation; which is the real formation. Most of these oil projects are sitting on what we call a ‘baby formation’. The fact that the Muzarabani project is sitting on the ‘old formation’ then gives us the betterment of our minerals as number one in the world.
Like what Hon. Togarepi said, once a discovery of that sort is on the ground, then there are fights. You would find that there was a talk on the streets that the Delgrado thing was targeting Muzarabani. That is what Hon. Togarepi was trying to say that the moment we try to do something as Zimbabwe, vultures will then start to focus on it and disturb the project. If you look at the Muzarabani Project – it is the only discovery sitting on the ‘old Creighton’ and that is the only discovery sitting on the old formation which then makes it easy to process the oil because it does not have a lot of contamination from the formation. The process that we do in refining the Muzarabani project is different from the one that we see in South Africa, Libya or whatever because their oil is discovered on off shores but this one is sitting on a stone. You need about 100 metres to access the oil.
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