The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo , Senior Business Reporter
ONE of the country’s leading mining equipment manufacturer and supplier, Small Scale Mining Supplies has come up with a portable mining plant tailor-made to suit artisanal and small-scale miners.Small Scale Mining Supplies chief executive officer Mr Laurie Clemison said as part of the company’s efforts to play a part in the mechanisation of artisanal and small-scale miners to enhance their production, it has developed a portable and mobile mining plant.
The Bulawayo-based company is already supplying gold small-scale miners with mining plants which entail mining, processing and recovery units valued at $200 000 payable over a period of three years at zero deposit and also offers start-up capital.
“We realised that our core business of supplying a complete mining plant is wonderful and we will continue with that but we can only do three or four a month at best. This does not help to uplift the artisanal miners to SMEs (Small to Medium Enterprises) status because its 20 000 of them.
“So what we have come up with is a starter pack concept and this starter pack concept will be a simple unit (costing) between $10 000 and $20 000 which they can put on the ground, if they are mining they don’t have to worry about the normal resource identification, which you do when you start mining,” said Mr Clemison.
The starter pack is in two models with one consisting of a hammer mill and concentrator while the other one comprises a roller crusher and concentrator.
Mr Clemison said the mining plant would enable miners to recover all their gold including the one from the sands and tailings dump which are often lost to individuals offering them custom milling services.
“A lot of them have identified claims of their own, they are getting duped by custom millers who are taking their sands. With our starter pack it means they will take the free gold themselves immediately and then their sands will stay with them and if their sands have got value in them they are an asset,” he said.
Mr Clemison further stated that the miners also stand an opportunity of recapitalising their mining operations through utilising their gold tailings dump with proven reserves in them as collateral at NMB Bank, which has since started offering such a service.
He said the company had the capacity to produce 20 of the mining plants in a month and had already sold two of the units.
“We are on our way and it’s going to be moving and we believe we are going to make a huge impact. We have just discussed this with the NMB Bank in particular, not a lot of people can afford to pay $10 000 but what we would like them to pay is a $2 500 deposit and go through the whole process of getting a bank loan.
“This way will also be uplifting the artisanal miner’s mindsets to the level that they understand that to go ahead you have to fill in forms and have a company. Everything has to be done correctly. It’s more like educating them to go to a $200 000-$300 000 plant later, so it’s all part of the educational system,” said Mr Clemison.
He said apart from playing a part in improving gold production, the latest innovation will also contribute towards the country’s economic turnaround aspects.
@DNsingo
