The Sunday Mail
Business Reporters
LISTED resources group, RioZim Limited, is now embarking on the third phase of its expansion drive at Cam and Motor Gold Mine in Kadoma which will see 20 families being relocated.
The firm, which switched on its processing plant in October last year, has since increased production from its open pit mining operations.
RioZim last year recorded its first ever profit since dollarisation in 2009 as net profit climbed to U$2,5 million buoyed by increased revenues at the Kodoma-based gold mine.
Under the third phase of the programme, RioZim is set to pay for 20 properties falling within the scope of Cam and Motor Mine’s expansion plan.
Group chief executive Mr Bhekinkosi Nkomo said prior to its closure in 1968, the gold mine — famed for its record 150-tonne gold haul since starting operations — used to exploit its mineral resource through underground mining, but since reopening in 2015, it has switched to open cast mining.
“Over years, before Cam and Motor was closed, it was an underground mine, so there was no need to move people,” said Mr Nkomo, who became the group’s substantive CEO yesterday.
“But we developed our model to open pit, and obviously certain properties are affected, we have completed phase one and phase two, we are now embarking on phase three.
“It’s a negotiated process, we agree on evaluation, in terms of the entire mining plan. This also depends on agreements with individual property owners,” said Mr Nkomo without giving specific figures on cost of the project.
Cam and Motor remains a strategic unit for the RioZim group.
Gold output at the mine rose 90 percent to 856 kilogrammes for the year ended December 31, 2016 from 450 kgs a year earlier, which helped lift the group to its first profit in seven years.
Overall, the group’s gold production rose 33 percent to 1,6 tonnes from 1,2 tonnes in 2015. RioZim corporate affairs director Mr Wilson Gwatiringa said: “Phase one and two had a total of 15 properties while phase three has 20 properties.”
Progress continues to be recorded in other units as well.
In October last year, a new gold processing plant was commissioned.
Group chairman Mr Lovemore Chihota says the company intends to improve its operational efficiencies through optimisation of the newly commissioned Cam and Motor gold processing plant.
There are also plans to increase production and gold recoveries through the installation of a flotation circuit to the plant in the second quarter of 2017.
