The Sunday Mail
The similarities between Zisco Steel (now New Zim Steel) and Hwange Colliery are just too glaring, the foremost being their importance to the well-being of the national economy.
Many have argued that bringing Zisco back to life is akin to bringing the national economy back on line, as many downstream industries feed off the iron and steel production giant. Similarly, Hwange is strategic to the national economy, given the role that coal, the main product, plays in power generation. However, recent visits to both Zisco and Hwange revealed a striking similarity in the manner with which operations at the two companies have been run. And if workers, management and Government are not to draw lessons from the demise of Zisco, the same fate awaits Hwange Colliery, the citadel of power generation in the country.
The siting of Zisco was such that almost all the raw materials to iron and steel production were within reach, with iron ore coming from the Ripple Creek iron ore deposits and limestone, a major component in the reduction of iron ore, also within reach. And the co-relation between Zisco and Hwange was such that the former was a heavy consumer of coal mined at Hwange. lf Zisco were to come to full production today and honour its obligations, Hwange would not face the liquidity challenges it is facing today, if all due managerial and governance issues are adhered to. More central to the revival and ticking of both Zisco and Hwange is the National Railways of Zimbabwe, whose demise also mirrors the demise of the other two giants. Zisco relied heavily on coal, which was a major component in the blast furnaces, which was railed from Hwange. So if Zisco were to come back to life today, NRZ will equally smile, as one of its biggest customers would need the haulage of coal.
Equally critical is the consumption of electricity by Zisco, it has its dedicated powerline straight from Hwange power station to the plant because, by their nature, once turned on blast furnaces need an uninterrupted 24-hour supply of electricity. If Zisco comes back to its feet, that means Hwange will need to up its production of coal to supply Zesa, so that the power utility can meet its obligations to Zisco.
The other striking similarity between Zisco and Hwange is the number of by-products that the two companies produced, which were able to sustain downstream industries. For instance, Zisco produced ammonia, which was fed to Sable Chemicals for the production of fertilisers. Sables has since resorted to importing the gas from outside the country to meet its obligations. It goes without saying that some of the challenges Sable Chemicals is facing, are in part, due to the closure of Zisco.
Relatedly, Hwange has methane, one of its by-products during the mining of coal. The gas is fed to Zesa for power generation. Today the gas pipeline lies idle in Hwange, with no gas being produced. Besides methane gas, the Colliery has the capacity to produce bitumen, a product which should be in great demand in the country, given the extensive road rehabilitation that is ongoing in the country. Lanchashire Steel, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ziscosteel, is not at full production currently because it is not getting the steel it used to get from Zisco. It has since resorted to importing steel to meet its market demands, and if Zisco were to come back to life, Lancashire Steel would also come back to life.
Talking to workers at both Zisco and Hwange (Zisco ceased full-scale operations in 2006 and its workers are not being paid though they are required to report for duty everyday. Hwange, though in full production, has not paid its workers for more than 12 months, cumulatively), the general sentiment is that Government, being the majority shareholder in both companies, has been complicit in that it has played a blind eye to the manner in which operations are run. Zisco, for its part, started closing blast furnaces, one by one, and once a blast furnace has been shut down, it is almost impossible to resuscitate it; rather the option would be to open a new one. Particular reference is given about the opening of Blast Furnace Number 4 at Zisco, when Number 3 was showing signs of packing up.
At Hwange, as fate would have it, its battery, which operates much the same as a blast furnace, has since been shut down, in spite of it having been refurbished, giving it a half-life of between 10 and 15 years. Now that the battery has been shut down, it is almost impossible to revive it, rather the option is to build a new one. The battery is used in the production of coking coal, a vital by-product of Hwange.
