Meet award winner Paul Chimbodza
PAUL Chimbodza, who won the Investment Icon Award at the inaugural Annual Investor Forum, is a holder of Bsc General and BSc Geology Honours degrees from the University of Zimbabwe and is an Associate Member of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM).
He has had more than 30 years’ experience in mineral exploration, evaluation andmining in Zimbabwe and the sub-Saharan region and has worked on projects Involving precious, base, industrial and energy minerals.
Chimbodza has spent the last two decades building exploration assets into active miningprojects and currently controls and has interests in a number of solid and robust mining and exploration portfolios in Zimbabwe, namely, former executive director and shareholder in Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe, the owners and developers of Arcadia Lithium Project which is currently Africa’s second largest hard rock JORC compliant lithium deposit and fifth largest globally. e project has since been sold to Huayou Cobalt for US$422 million He was also founder and managing Director of Geo Associates (Pvt) Ltd Geo Associates holds the country’s only Special Grant licence No 4571 for the exploration of oil and gas in the Zambezi Valley.
e current exploration work being conducted by the technical partners, the ASX listed Invictus Energy and is a follow up to the US$30 million seismic data gathered under a hydrocarbons exploration project that was carried out by Mobil International in the mid 1980’s to mid-1990’s. An initial Prospective Maiden Resource totalling 1,3 billion barrels of oil (bboe) equivalent consisting of 20tcf gas and 875 million barrels of conventional gas/condensate was signed off by ERCE
e company is on the verge of drilling it’s maiden two wells, namely Mukuyu 1 to be drilled to a depth of 3,5km and Baobab to be drilled to a depth of 1,5km. Chimbodza is also the non-executive director and shareholder of the wholly Zimbabwean owned and indigenous Wickbury Investments (Pvt) Ltd, the owners of Dinhidza Vermiculite mine located in Manicaland Province.
Dinhidza mine produces high quality grade vermiculite for the agriculture, construction and manufacturing industry use in Zimbabwe. e company is also currently exploring for magnetite and Rare Earths
Elements on the Shawa carbonatite complex on which the Dinhidza mine is located. He is also the founder, non-executive director and chairman of Febrose Investments, the developers of a 100 tonne per hour aggregate quarry and brick/cement products project in Mvurwi town, Mashonaland Central.
Chimbodza has also held executive positions in various companies including Metallon Gold, Hwange Colliery and Falcon Gold.“Your Excellency, please can we reform our SoEs more aggressively to flip them from being a drain to being a contributor.
e need for robust infrastructure cannot be over-emphasized.
“Over the last few decades, as a country we have underinvested in this area. Our roads are in disrepair, our health facilities are in disarray.”