Hwange Colliery goes into Tanzania

company expands its markets, an official in the region.
The coal miner resumed regional exports late last year as a result of low production and high operational costs.
Before penetrating East Africa, the company was exporting to Botswana, DRC, Malawi, Mozambi-que and Zambia.
HCCL managing director Mr Fred Moyo confirmed Hwange started exporting to Tanzania last month.
“We are now exporting coal and its products to six regional countries with our major customer being Zambia,” said Mr Moyo.
“We recently started exporting to Tanzania and we have so far done nearly 7 000 tonnes.”
He said Hwange was now exporting nearly 62 000 tonnes of coal every month into the region.
“We were exporting about 54 000 tonnes of coal but this has increased due to the addition of the Tanzanian market,” he said.
He said Hwange was engaging several financial institutions for loan facilities to boost production.
Hwange requires about US$200 million to fully exploit its potential and boost production.
The company recently obtained US$20 million from the Develop-ment Bank of South Africa (DBSA) and local banks, an amount Mr Moyo described as “small”.
“We are presently engaging other both foreign and local creditors as we need nearly US$200 million to unlock the full potential of the mine,” said Mr Moyo.
He said financiers were satisfied with their resource base and funds could be released soon.
Hwange’s coal production was 2,4 million tonnes compared with 1,6 million tonnes in 2009.
The company is sitting on two billion tonnes reserves of coal and the deposits are considered to be world class.
Hwange requires about US$90 million for new machinery for both underground and open cast operations. – New Ziana.