KMH in US$150m capex programmes
ZIMBABWE’S largest mining company, Kuvimba Mining House (KMH), says it has spent over US$150 million on capital expenditure programmes designed to revive some of the mothballed mines the mining group took over since 2019.
KMH was established a few years ago to consolidate Zimbabwe’s development agenda by resuscitating and developing mines or industrial operations considered of national strategic importance.
The mining group, which has vast interests in gold, nickel, lithium, chrome and platinum either holds 100 percent equity or is a major shareholder in a number of entities including Victoria Falls Stock Exchange-listed Bindura Nickel Corporation (BNC), Globe and Phoenix, Freda Rebecca, Shamva, Jena, Sandawana, Tiger and Club, Elvington mines, and Zimbabwe Alloys (Zim Alloys).
KMH group chief finance officer Innocent Rukweza said in an interview that the mining group was confident it would recover all the investment being put towards the resuscitation of the acquired entities.
“We are trying to revive most of the mines that we have and we got a project of reviving and restarting some of the mines that have not been functional and we are very confident that we’ll recover the investment that we are going to put in.
“I think to date since we took over some of these mines we have spent an excess of US$150 million in capex (capital expenditure) just to resuscitate some of these mines to get them going to upgrade them among other things,” he said.
On exploration, the mining giant is expecting to spend between US$20 million and US$30 million across the board.
The group’s exploration programme has so far been undertaken on mines that include Shamva, Freda Rebecca, Sandawana Mines and Great Dyke Investments’ platinum project in Darwendale, Mashonaland West Province.
“We have an aggressive exploration programme that we have earmarked, we are looking to spend between US$20 million and US$30 million in exploration.
“We are hopeful that the resource that we are going to get it’s going to be a significant resource and that is going to be our launchpad to restrategise and reconfigure our mines and make use that whatever that we have earmarked is going to be sustainable and done,” said Mr Rukweza.
He said Sandawana Mine, which was formerly an emerald mine, was being revived as a lithium and tantalite operation. A four-phased extensive exploration programme encompassing other mineral resources such as beryllium, tantalite, and gold is already underway.
Under phase 1 of the exploration programme, Sandawana is targeting a resource of up to 30 million tonnes of lithium ore.
“Sandawana is the group’s most promising project that we have currently.
“Next week or at the beginning of October, we are hoping to start Phase 2 of our exploration and we are hoping to get a JORC Joint Ore Reserve Committee) report of phase 1 and that is going to ascertain the resource that we have.
“We have already had indications of the lithium reserve that we have at Sandawana and this is quite promising,” he said.-herald
