The Sunday Mail
GOVERNMENT has crafted measures to re-open mothballed mines and resuscitate struggling entities to improve the sector’s performance.
There are also indications that high-level talks with investors are underway.
Government wants to breathe life into Ziscosteel, Kamativi (tin), Mhangura (copper) and several chrome mining and smelting houses.
As part of the strategy, Government has classified the affected mines into three groups — greenfields, struggling mines and brownfields
Mines and Mining Development Deputy Minister Engineer Fred Moyo said: “Those that are in the greenfields section are those that need to be explored and mining will resume.
“The Great Dyke Investment deal with the Russians is an example where we have brought investors to pour in hundreds of millions of dollars over a certain timeframe.
“Then we have the brownfields; here, in this category, the mines would have stopped operating, but they still have deposits they are sitting on. We have Kamativi and Mhangura and the question now is that how are we going to bring them back.
“We are looking at why, how, who and what can be done under this model. We are also looking into Shabanie Mashaba Mines,” said Eng Moyo.
Early this year, Eng Moyo told Parliament that the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation had found a foreign investor willing to inject US$100 million to revive Kamativi and have it functional by 2016.
The tin mine was shut down two decades ago despite being reputed to have near-surface deposits.
Kamativi has an estimated 40 million tonnes of open cast tin reserves, and a tonne of the resource fetches between US$17 000 and US$22 000 on the international market.
There are also plans to capitalise struggling mines.
“We are now looking at struggling assets and see how we can protect them and Ziscosteel qualifies under this group; it is not shutdown, but it is struggling,” he said.
He said Government would also consider helping chrome miners.
“Then there are those that were struggling in this industry such as Zimasco and Zim Alloys (that) will need a new lease of life following the lift of the export ban on chrome. These are efforts we are putting in place to assist mining houses.”
