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A LOCAL engineering firm, White Site Engineering, has manufactured a hammer mill compatible with small-scale miners, which is set to go a long way towards enhancing gold production.
White Site managing director, Ms Charity Mudhubiwa, said the company came up with the idea of manufacturing their latest innovation following consultations with small-scale miners’ representative body, the Zimbabwe Miners’ Federation (ZMF).
The hammer mill has the capacity to crush six to eight tonnes of gold ore per hour and has a 30 horse power engine.
“This hammer mill has been in circulation for a long time but it was not appreciated by most miners who are used to custom milling, which is a very heavy type of machinery and so expensive that most small scale miners cannot afford.
“I am sure ZMF as a body that represents small scale miners thought our hammer mills were cheaper, compatible, effective and efficient for a small scale miner and thus it approached us as manufacturers so that we mechanise the small-scale miners to increase the national output for gold,” said Ms Mudhubiwa.
The Bulawayo based company manufactures a wide range of mining consumables, which include amalgam barrels and stamp mills.
“We are intending to have some distribution shops in places like Gwanda. We also intend to have a distribution centre where we will put the requirements closer to the miners.
“This will include places like Nkayi and Silobela where we think miners should be getting these consumables closer to them,” said Ms Mudhubiwa.
ZMF spokesman, Mr Dosman Mangisi, said the introduction of the latest hammer mill would go a long way towards gold beneficiation.
“We are working on targets as well as promoting on onsite milling. We are also trying to reduce what we call down time in the mining sector where people do not waste time waiting for their turns for two or three weeks at stamp mills. One should just extract let’s say five tonnes and process it there and there.
So this will be able to contribute our gold [output] and this is in focus with 28 tonnes (gold production target set by Government for this year),” said Mr Mangisi.
He said with the mining sector poised to stir the turnaround of the economy buoyed by improved gold production, it was important for local manufacturers to produce requisite machinery.
“We want many companies to manufacture components like these and meet the demand because so far manufacturers are not meeting the demand.
“So the retooling of the mining industry must continue to grow and that is the only way we can promote beneficiation.
“The more we have manufacturers in this country it also means that our import bill is reduced because at the moment the sector import bill is over $1.7 billion and we need to reduce this,” he said.
White Site also manufactures components for the agricultural and general industrial sectors and employs 25 people.
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