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Oliver Kazunga
Senior Business Reporter
The construction of a 15-megawatt (MW) thermal power station by Sabi Star Lithium Mine is nearing completion, with commissioning expected during this quarter, a senior official has said.
To date, the lithium mine project, located in Buhera District, Manicaland Province, has been relying on a heavy-duty diesel-powered generator, incurring costs of approximately US$1 million per month.
The thermal power plant, costing about US$25 million, is expected to reduce the mine’s dependence on the national grid, which has been adversely affected by limited generation capacity. Sabi Star mine manager Engineer Oswald Makonese said in an interview on yestersday efforts were on course to commission their thermal power plant during the first quarter of this year.
“We are actually working on getting it commissioned in this quarter — and to be precise by March 31,” said Eng Makonese. “In terms of completion of the project we are almost 95 percent now, ” he added.
Construction of the thermal power station at Sabi Star began in 2023.
On completion, the thermal power plant is expected to supply the 12MW required by the mine while the remaining 3MW will be fed to the national grid for the nearby community.
“We are still using the diesel-powered generators and the cost that we are incurring on running the generator is close to US$1 million per month,” said Eng Makonese.
Sabi Star is owned by Max Mind Investments (Zimbabwe) Private Limited, a subsidiary of Chinese firm Shenzhen Chengxin Lithium Group. The mine started as an exploration project in 2015, culminating in a bankable feasibility study completed in 2021 while preliminary construction works started a year later. The current delineated resource gives a mine life of seven years, but through the existing exploration activities, the lithium producer plans to double the mine life.
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