Zim coal production down 36pc
COAL production at the country’s largest coal miner Makomo Resources has plunged as much as 36 percent since the beginning of the year as activity dropped due to a serious shortage of foreign currency
to import spares, director Ray Mutokonyi said.
Zimbabwe is facing serious currency shortages and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe recently disclosed that the foreign payments backlog now stretches up to a year.
Despite the central bank’s drawdowns on the $1,1 billion African Export Import Bank nostro stabilisation facility to facilitate international payments, local companies are still battling with the shortage of the green back to settle external payments.
“We had a very bad start . . . our monthly production levels declined from around 250 000 tonnes to 160 000 tonnes because we have no foreign currency to import raw critical spares,” said Mutokonyi. “This affected our ability to satisfy customer’s orders.” Makomo is the largest supplier of coal to Zimbabwe Power Station and the decline in production has forced ZPC to shut down its thermal plants Bulawayo and Munyati and Harare.
Mutokonyi, however, said production activity was picking up after the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe released foreign currency.
But the allocation “is a drop in a ocean considering that we have not been getting forex for a very long time,” said Mutokonyi.
He said due to inconsistent allocation of foreign currency, requirements have grown and the company required as much as $10 million to import critical spares.