eBusiness Weekly
Oliver Kazunga
Power supply constraints experienced in first half of this year saw Zimbabwe’s largest gold producer, Freda Rebecca Gold Mine, dropping output by 30 000 ounces in the financial year ended March 31, 2023.
In the year under review, the mine realised 73 000oz of the yellow metal down from 103 000oz in the prior year.
Speaking during a media tour of the Bindura-based gold miner last week, Freda managing director, Patrick Maseva-Shayawabaya, revealed that power supply challenges experienced during the greater part of the first half negatively impacted their operations.
He indicated that in the year under review, Freda produced 73 000oz of the yellow metal down from 103 000oz in the financial year ended March 2022.
“Power has been of concern from a point of availability and the cost of it. Availability has improved of late, but the cost has been and remains a concern.
“At this point in time, I think we are averaging about 13 cents per kilowatt hour which is quite high, but at least we have got the power now,” he said.
In the current year to March 2024, Maseva-Shayawabaya said they expect production to rise marginally to 80 000oz on the back of improved power supply in the country.
Recently, Zimbabwe improved its domestic power generation following the commissioning of Hwange’s Unit 7 and 8 at Hwange, which are now both on stream while more output is also being derived from Kariba Hydro Power Station and Independent Power Producers (IPPs).
Completion of the projects has seen Zimbabwe increasing its total output to about 1 500MW from as low as less than 600MW in March this year.
In its first quarter that ran from April to June 2023, Freda, a subsidiary of Kuvimba Mining House (KMH), which is the country’s biggest mining group, produced 603 kilogrammes of the yellow metal compared to 592kg in the corresponding period last year.
“We aspire to get that number to be above 20 000oz, but as an overall assessment, the performance for the quarter was a good one for us despite the fact that we lost many hours due to power cuts.
“Despite the fact that we lost many hours due to power cuts, we were able to compensate for that by higher throughput and also a higher grade.
“You see that we had a grade of 1,53 grammes per tonne for the quarter compared to 1,49g/t in the comparable quarter last year,” he said.
Gold is Zimbabwe’s major foreign currency earner and under the US$12 billion mining target by the end of this year, the yellow metal is expected to contribute US$4 billion.
Platinum is expected to contribute US$3 billion, diamond US$1 billion while chrome, ferro-chrome and carbon steel will generate US$1 billion, lithium US$500 million, and coal US$1 billion.
Other minerals are expected to generate US$1,5 billion.
Meanwhile, Maseva-Shayawabaya said safety is of utmost importance in their operations and thus the mining entity is working tirelessly to reduce injuries at the workplace.
“Mining is inherently dangerous therefore getting each and every one of us who wakes up to go to work, getting them to go back home without injuries is very important for us.
“For this quarter unfortunately we recorded one lost time injury when compared to the year before we had two lost time injuries for that quarter,” he said.
Last year, Freda recorded a total of seven lost time injuries.
