adminTinashe Makichi Business Reporter
ZIMBABWE’s largest gold mining group, Metallon Gold is expecting to comply with the country’s indigenisation regulations this year after spending sometime liaising with Government regarding the policy.
Metallon Gold’s indigenisation plan has been approved and is now awaiting implementation.
“The policy is no longer a ‘one size fits all’ approach and therefore indigenisation is set to be completed in 2014. Credits have been allocated through corporate social responsibility projects and employee share schemes,” said the company in the September corporate presentation.
Metallon said expansion plans are underway for the company to become a mid-tier producer in the next five years while an additional pipeline of exploration and development projects backed by production growth and stable cash flows are underway as well.
The company is also looking at developing the Motapa project which is a brownfield project with sands and sulphide-gold resources (in-house estimate of 2,4 million ounces.)
Metallon said there has been a successful ultrafine grinding metallurgical processing tested (the Albion process) and the project contains the richer Motapa camp deposits (3-10grammes per tonne) of Club, B&S, Fossicker, Pluvius and Jupiter.
The mining conglomerate is expecting to increase production through efficient use of capacity and to ramp up production to 100 000 ounces per annum in 2014 from 82 000 ounces per annum in 2013
Metallon is also looking at the reduction of all-in-costs to under $900 per ounce while returning to previous production levels of approximately 156, 000 ounces per annum.
“There is targeted production increase by expansion of current operations and feasibility studies underway to propose capital expenditure for the company,” Metallon group said.
The mining group has set Shamva Hill, Mazowe and Redwing Mines as high priority targets.
Drilling at Midwinter and Motapa, Zimbabwe and exploration in Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania has been put under the company’s future exploration projects.
The mining group is currently planning to implement a five-year strategy to become a mid-tier gold producer of 200 000 ounces of gold a year by 2016.
Despite operational challenges, Metallon has managed to reduce costs and was also able to recover from the 2008 global recession, which significantly affected Zimbabwe.
With labour disputes and the difficulty of having to mine deeper in South Africa, mining in Zimbabwe has proven to be a good mining investment destination.
Metallon has been operating in Zimbabwe since 2002 and owns and operates four mines in the country, including How mine, Shamva mine, Mazowe mine and Arcturus mine.
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