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Defunct steelmaker, the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (ZISCO) cannot be revived without the efficient functioning of upstream enablers, the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), Hwange Colliery, Sable Chemicals and the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA).

Last month Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha intimated that Government was currently in the process of engaging a number of potential foreign investors for the revival of the Kwekwe-based steelmaker after the 2011 deal with Essar Africa Holdings fell through.

Presenting a paper to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce this afternoon former Lancashire Steel and ZISCO managing director Dr Gabriel Masanga said there is need for a holistic approach to revival of the steelmaker that has been mothballed for 10 years.

“We will need a lot of synergies in terms of what is happening at ZISCO and what is happening externally, here we are talking of Hwange Colliery, the NRZ, Sable Chemicals and ZESA. What is happening there will link with the scale of development at the steelmaker.

“You cannot have ZISCO without Hwange working, or without the National Railways operating. You cannot have ZISCO without ZESA working at full capacity, especially when you get the blast furnace up it’s not something that you can allow to be affected by power shortages or black-outs, it will be a disaster,” he said.

Dr Masanga noted that at full operation ZISCO will require a significant level of dedicated supplies of coal from Hwange and locomotives to carry the supplies.

“At full operation ZISCO will require 100 000 tonnes of coal from Hwange every month, and you have two NRZ locomotives moving between Hwange and Redcliff, and with potential derailments you will need two more locomotives as spares. So you are looking at six or seven dedicated locomotives for ZISCO alone bringing coal. Then the rest of the other locomotives are for transportation of the steel products.

“For exports there is need for a railway line between Redcliff and Beira, or one via Chikwalakwala to Maputo to be running.”

“The other external requirement then becomes oxygen from Sable Chemicals. There is a pipeline from Sable which goes right down to ZISCO which supplies oxygen for steelmaking. They (Sable) have an air separation plant there but they were using an expensive method of breaking water into oxygen and hydrogen. So the synergy discussions will need to be carried out between ZISCO and Sable as to whether the latter will resuscitate their plant,” he explained.

Dr Masanga also said it was possible for ZISCO to be revived without foreign investors, but the process would be a phased approach entailing three key stages.

In November last year, Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa said Government would consider financing the revival of ZISCO if it fails to get foreign investors “soon”.

In 2011, the Government signed a $750 million agreement with Indian firm Essar Africa Holdings to revive the firm, but the deal eventually fell through after Essar pulled out citing non-viability of the project due to volatile global steel prices. — BH24.