The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
HWANGE Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) will complete the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) at its new concessions next month.
HCCL managing director engineer Thomas Makore said the EIA at one of the concessions was expected to be completed before the end of the month.
“The Environmental Impact Assessments for the new concessions are progressing well. The one for Western Areas will be completed by end of July while the assessments for the Lubimbi concessions are expected to be completed by end of August,” said Eng Makore.
The Government granted the company new concessions at Western Areas and Lubimbi West and East in 2015. The new concessions hold deposits in excess of a billion tonnes of coal consisting of both coking coal and thermal coal at Western areas and Lubimbi West while Lubimbi East has prevalence of coal-bed methane gas, giving HCCL an additional estimated life of mine of above 70 years.
“The company invited bidders for exploration and drilling through an open tender process. Negotiations with the successful bidder for the Western Areas concession are underway while the bids for the other concessions are still being adjudicated,” said Eng Makore.
Early this year HCCL signed two 25-year coal supply agreements with the Zimbabwe Power Company and Lusulu Power, an independent power producer in Matabeleland North.
“Twenty five years’ coal supply agreements were signed to supply ZPC’s Hwange Power Station expansion and another to supply an Independent Power Producer that will be based at Mlibizi,” said Eng Makore.
The company’s environmental consultancy firm Environmental Guardians Services’ senior consultant Mr Michael Montana said geological information on the Western Areas indicated that the resource can be mineable by both opencast and underground mining methods.
“The project description of Lubimbi West will be the same as at Western coalfields, however, all the coal will be hauled to Mlibizi at a proposed power station. In Lubimbi East only Liquefied Petroleum Gas will be mined. There will be gas wells as well as evaporation ponds with a three-millimetre polythene membrane that is meant to mitigate underground water pollution,” said Mr Montana.
He said some stakeholders are yet to submit their comments on the project, a situation which might delay the process of handing over an EIA Report to the Environmental Management Agency (EMA).
“There are major stakeholders like Zimbabwe National Water Authority, National Parks, Forestry Commission, South Mining, Zimbabwe Power Company that haven’t submitted their comments regarding to the Western Areas project so this will delay submission of the EIA report to EMA because we have to address their concerns,” said Mr Montana.
The concerned companies also failed to send representatives for an EIA consultative meeting that was held in Hwange on 10 July.
“So far we have done archaeological and ecological reports, an eco-social assessment has been done as well, generally all the scoping has been done,” said Mr Montana.
Environmental Guardians Services is one of the country’s most reputable environment consultancy firms, which has conducted over 100 projects for various institutions across economic sectors mostly in Matabeleland region and the Midlands Province since its inception in 2009. In the mining sector its has carried out projects for Discovery in Lupane, Liberation Mining, Chilota Coal Mine, Mota Engil (explosive manufacturing plant) and a number of gold, chrome and limestone mines.
@DNsingo
