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HWANGE Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) is exploring ways of aggressively marketing its products at household level as one of its numerous initiatives of enhancing its revenue base.
HCCL managing director Mr Thomas Makore said although the coal mining giant was envisaging its business growth through improved performance on the industrial and export markets not much had been done to tap into the household market.
“We haven’t done enough on the consumer market so our products are not easily available to an individual. We have discussed this in our strategic planning workshops.
“We think it’s an area where we need to develop a very well-planned distribution model so that a person in the rural areas can be able to buy a bag of coal,” Mr Makore said.
He said the company’s distribution concept would entail logistics of moving its coal to the public and ensuring the availability of the requisite stoves for use as an alternative energy source for cooking at homes.
“We need to work on that distribution concept and we will be doing that in the next three to six months. Once it’s buttressed down then we can look at the application in other words how we make sure people are able to buy a stove which uses coal,” Mr Makore said.
He said the company would first of all determine if there were local companies especially small to medium enterprises that have expertise in manufacturing coal stoves and then ensure the constant availability of coal to the consumers.
The supply of energy to rural households in Zimbabwe has become an urgent issue for Government particularly for the reason that the traditional form of rural household energy, wood, is increasingly becoming harder to obtain due to the growing depletion of trees in many parts of the country.
A few options have been considered to guarantee the supply of energy to affected households and to curb any loss of trees that may be attributed to the energy applications of indigenous forests.
However, efforts to introduce coal to rural households as a substitute for wood are not a first as in the early 1980s, the Government through the then Ministry of Energy and Water Resources and Development and HCCL (then Wankie Colliery) tried the concept.
Mines and Mining Development Deputy Minister Cde Fred Moyo said the initiative of encouraging the use of coal stoves was a noble idea in pursuit of fighting deforestation but hinted that there was a need to reduce the price of coal delivered to households.
HCCL once tried to revive the concept of coal stoves during Cde Moyo’s tenure as the managing director in 2011 but its take-off was hindered by pricing.
“We tried it the last time and our aim was to provide a social service to communities. We approached it in two ways namely to fight deforestation and to empower women but pricing was the problem.
“Of course it’s a good service but they have to make sure the coal bags and stoves reach the people at affordable prices. It may not draw much revenue but it’s a noble idea which is worth pursuing,” he said.
Online Reporter