Behold: Zim’s new US$35m pride
THIS, indeed, is a very special time as a whole as we celebrate a giant leap for RioZim and for our country. Today we commission the Biological Oxidation Plant which is meant to enable the processing of refractory sulphide gold ore. That this is only the eighth operating Biox plant in the world, the biggest in Africa, second biggest in the world and that it has been built in Zimbabwe, for Zimbabwe means that our country is living up to your famous mantra and business war cry of “Zimbabwe is open for business”.
There couldn’t be a better example of that.
Background
Cam and Motor Mine was started by our predecessors, in the early 1900s. It operated for close to six decades and was mined down to over 2 000 metres.
Over its life, Cam and Motor Mine has produced over 175 metric tonnes of gold (around five million ounces) — making it one of the biggest gold producers in southern Africa.
The mine stopped production 50 plus years ago after it was determined that it was no longer viable.
Our journey
After Rio Tinto divested from the business, it was listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.
The ensuing years saw the company go through major turmoil so much so that in late 2011 and early 2012, the company was facing an existential crisis. RioZim had accumulated a massive debt of over US$110m with nominal revenues.
The High Court had almost granted an order for judicial management of the company. At the last minute, there was a change in majority shareholding of the company and that is when the current board and management team came together to try and turn around the fortunes of the company.
Since then, RioZim has grown from strength to strength. We invested in a massive ongoing exploration exercise whereby we operate the biggest exploration fleet in the country with 10 diamond drill rigs in operation at our various locations. This is more than anyone else in the country.
After a major strategic investment, Cam and Motor Mine was re-opened as an open cast mine in April 2015. Thereafter, we built a brand-new CIL plant here.
RioZim bought the Dalny Mine complex in early 2017. The mine had been closed down in 2013. We invested money to refurbish the dilapidated plant to restart operations at Dalny and managed to create significant employment there as a result.
Since re-opening Cam in 2015, to date, about two million tonnes of ore has been processed, producing about eight tonnes of gold. Hundred percent of this gold has been supplied to Fidelity Refinery 3.
However, as the mine went deeper, the geological composition of the ore changed from oxides to refractory sulphides, drastically reducing the gold recovery rate.
This is what led us to build the Biological Oxidation Plant, which has the appropriate and most importantly, an environment-friendly technology to treat refractory sulphides. I will talk a little more on the Biox plant shortly.
Further to the investments and successes at Renco, Cam and Motor and Dalny gold mines, we also started a new gold mine called One Step in the Battlefields area in 2019.
In addition, a lot of time, effort and money has been put into ENR, our base metal refinery across the road from here. Along with being able to beneficiate matte to LME grade nickel and copper, ENR is the only existing plant in southern Africa that can treat the Kamativi Spodumene dumps into battery grade lithium. Sadly, this plant is currently under care and maintenance due to lack of raw material feed. BCL in Botswana is in liquidation and we have been unable to get feedstock from the Kamativi Tailings Dump.
One day, Tesla will work with us to make EV Batteries in Zimbabwe when we are able to access material from Kamativi. ENR is a unique facility which needs to be married to the feedstock at Kamativi. That will put Zimbabwe on the map of the world as an innovator.
We also own the Maranatha Chrome smelter which is also across the road from here. We aim to start to produce high grade ferro chrome there soon. We have had some issues with our chrome deposits in Darwendale North and are hoping that they will be resolved in due course. Once those issues are behind us, we intend to become the largest producer of ferro chrome in Zimbabwe
The group also operates the Murowa Diamond Mine in Zvishavane where the prior owners, Rio Tinto used to produce 250 000 carats annually mining hard rock kimberlite pipes.
We have managed to almost quadruple production there. We are shortly commissioning a state-of-the-art new plant that Zimbabwe will be very proud of as it is the most advanced of its kind anywhere in the world.
The group is also seeking to implement 40MW of solar power as Phase I of a 175MW plan to make us the first “renewables/green only mining company in the world”.
Overall, we have invested over US$350m across the group so far. For a Zimbabwean company, we are proud of that achievement. I hope the nation will trust us to continue to husband more resources and we hope we will have policy support from the current administration to enable us to continue to keep Zimbabwe great.
The Biological Oxidation Plant
After a quick snapshot of our journey, that brings me to today and the Biological Oxidation Plant.
Due to lack of access to foreign currency, this plant took us nearly three years to build. It is the only refractory ore treatment plant in Zimbabwe. Since a significant part of the gold in our country is held in refractory sulphides, this plant is destined to transform the mining landscape in our country through technology.
Like I mentioned earlier, this is only the 8th operating Biox plant in the world, the biggest in Africa and second biggest in the world.
This technology uses billions of live microbial bacteria which are kept alive and happy through constant supply of air and food and are given the right conditions like temperature and acidity for them to thrive.
In turn, these bugs eat the surface waste and, in the process, liberate the locked-up gold particle which otherwise could not be recovered by a simple CIL process.
Outotec, who are the technology owners along with other project partners, helped us build this plant which on the whole has cost us US$35m.
Gold production at Cam is expected to grow to 175 kilogrammes per month from zero which translates to over two tonnes or 65 000 ounces of gold per year. This is all new and additional.
This significant growth in gold production puts RioZim Limited in good stead to contribute to Zimbabwe’s vision of a “US$12 billion mining industry by 2023” as well as the overall national “Vision 2030”.