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Oliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
HWANGE Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) has unveiled plans to establish dedicated operations in southern Lowveld to export coal through Mozambique to the eastern markets. HCCL board chairman Farai Mutamangira told journalists after a familiarisation tour of the colliery last Thursday that the move would boost earnings from anticipated production output of up to 450,000 tonnes.
“We’ve decided to go to the southern Lowveld to set up the operations that will be dedicated to export coal in the southern Lowveld because all the elements we need to export coal are coming up together,” he said.
“Southern Lowveld is 543 kilometres from the port of Maputo and Chicualacuala Border Post and we think that’s comparative to what we’ve between Tete and Beira, which is 600km.
We can create another Tete in our southern Lowveld. Tete has attracted more than $8 billion in terms of capital investments.
There’s Ghana, Brazil, India. . . and we think that our southern Lowveld is competitively positioned to be able to lobby itself as a huge exporter of coal and the events in the eastern markets are pointing to the need to set up export operations in the southern Lowveld.”
HCCL intends to increase coal output to 450,000 tonnes by next month on the back of the recently commissioned new mining equipment sourced through the PTA BELAZ facility to the tune of $18.2 million and India Exim Bank’s $13,03 facility.
The mining machinery, which include 10 dump trucks, front end loaders, drill rigs, tyre handlers and a water bowser was commissioned by Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko on June 19.
HCCL came under the spotlight when it was reported in some sections of the media that some of the mining machinery were second hand due to hydraulic oil leaks, claims the coal producer has dismissed as malicious.
At the moment, all the new machinery has been successfully deployed and operational.
“The process of meeting the targets is a gradual process but we’re expecting to see our production targets being met in the course of this month.
“As the colliery, we’re targeting to do a minimum of 250,000 tonnes . . . we believe the contractor (Mota Engil) will be able to do the other balance of about 200,000 tonnes,” said Mutamangira.
At that level of production, he said, HCCL would be able to shrug off competition from local producers.
The board chair said the space for competition was about 40 percent while 60 percent was occupied by HCCL.
In the past few years, the government has awarded special grants to a number of companies to explore and extract coal in resource rich Matabeleland North.
Some of the coal mining companies in Matabeleland North include Makomo Resources and Zambezi Gas.
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