Zambezi Gas starts coal mining

20 Apr, 2014 - 00:04 0 Views
Zambezi Gas starts coal mining

The Sunday News

coal miningBusiness Reporter
ZAMBEZI Gas will start marketing coal from its Entuba concession in Hwange in June, as it is expecting to start extracting the mineral after completing removal of the overburden material.
The company’s chief executive officer, Mr Thomas Nherera, said mining operations started late last year with removal of the overburden while the extraction of coal was expected to commence next month.

The firm’s 19 000 hectare concession has more than 200 million tonnes of coal reserves.
“We expect to start coal extraction next month with a two-week working non-coal and thereafter go into the mining of coking coal and build up our stocks and then possibly start processing for the market.

“We are looking at producing 25 000 tonnes of coal a month moving upwards and we are quite optimistic we can achieve this target with the machinery at hand. Of course one has to take into consideration issues to do with breakdowns,” Mr Nherera said.

He said the company would market its coal to power stations as well as tobacco farmers and various industries that use the product.

The firm was granted special gas and coal concessions in 2003 and 2007 respectively, along with several other companies but lack of technical and financial resources delayed mining activities over the years.

“In the long run we will consider producing coke through a partnership that we seek to engage in with the Hwange Colliery Company Limited. The coke will be directed to companies that will be using furnaces,” Mr Nherera said.

Coal Producers and Processors Association of Zimbabwe president Dr Cephas Mandlenkosi Msipa said the coming of Zambezi Gas into coal production would go a long way towards improving deliveries at the country’s power stations.

“Of course Zambezi Gas started mining operations some time ago but in terms of production I’m not quite sure. However, as ZCPA we welcome it and we are quite sure this will lead to an increase in coal deliveries at power stations because over the years we have been experiencing load shedding partly due to coal shortages and this had an impact in terms of reducing productivity at most of our industries,” Dr Msipa said.

He, however, said a lot needed to be done to ensure that local coal mining companies improve on exports.

“At the same time we have been lobbying for an improvement on the export market because the local market is becoming saturated due to the increase in the number of coal mining companies.

“Of course what that means is that we have to come up with more realistic pricing models because if you look at new players like Botswana and Mozambique they have taken the better niche of the market because their prices are much more competitive as compared to us,” Dr Msipa said.

He said there was a need for the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe to review its export market tariffs to allow companies to reduce prices.

Share This:

Survey


We value your opinion! Take a moment to complete our survey

This will close in 20 seconds