The Sunday News
Munyaradzi Musiiwa Midlands Business Correspondent
AUSTRALIA-BASED exploration company — African Chrome Fields — has started working on a $1 billion chrome project in the Midlands Province that will see the setting up of a state-of-the-art exothermic chrome smelting plant outside Kwekwe and also the mining of chrome from about 150 mining claims along the Great Dyke.
Sunday Business understands that the project, seen as a game changer in the Midlands Province and the whole country is one of the major breakthrough in the implementation of the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim Asset).
Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa confirmed the project and said President Mugabe will soon commission it.
“This project will use new technology that is able to smelt chrome concentrate into ultra-low carbon ferrochrome in 45 seconds. President Mugabe will soon be commissioning the project at a ground breaking ceremony for the construction of the state-of-the-art exothermic chrome smelting plant here in Kwekwe,” said VP Mnangagwa while addressing Zanu-PF supporters at Bob-Swift in Midlands.
Sunday Business visited the site of the project and discovered that preliminary work towards the project was already in full swing.
ACF chief operations officer Mr Fred van Rensburg told Sunday Business at the construction site that the new plant will process chrome concentrate to produce ultra-low carbon ferrochrome in 45 seconds and has the capacity to produce 10 000 tonnes of ultra-low carbon ferrochrome a month.
He said the company has 147 blocks of chrome claims which will feed into the plant which uses new technology that does not require electricity.
“We are setting up four chrome washing plants at the site that would convert chrome ore into chrome concentrate that would then be smelted into ultra-low carbon ferrochrome. We are investing about $1,5 billion in this whole project. We want to set up a mine here and also build a chrome smelting plant.
This chrome smelting plant will process chrome concentrate into ultra-low carbon ferrochrome in 45 to 60 seconds. This plant does not require electricity for it to run,” he said.
