Business Reporter
BINDURA Nickel Corporation will start exporting in the first quarter of next year, as the reopening of Trojan Mine begins, chairman Mr Kalaa Mpinga said yesterday. The nickel miner raised about US$21 million through a rights offer, enabling it to restart Trojan Mine, placed on care and maintenance

in September 2008.
“The US$21 million will allow us to start and we should be able to start exporting concentrate in the first quarter next year,” Mr Mpinga told an annual general meeting.

“We are now out of the intensive care and, next year, will probably leave the hospital.”
Mr Mpinga said a full recapitalisation of US$33 million is required for BNC to achieve an average 7 000 tonnes of concentrate a year over a three-year period.
Chief operating officer Mr Batirai Manhando said an additional US$12 million would be raised through debt. This would be much easier when the mine resumes operations.

In an update on plant maintenance, Mr Mpinga said repairs had covered the main rock shaft bunton sets, main rock shaft ore, bin and waste conveyors, crushing plant steel structures, electrical panels and electric cables, overhauling crushers, conveyors and screens and hot commissioning of the crushing circuit.
He said work on the main steel structures in the milling section remained to be done.

Mr Manhando said the new shareholding structure of the company to be announced soon would reflect the new holdings of Mwana Africa plc, which underwrote the rights issue and ownership of creditors and staff.
About 67,18 million shares, out of 700 073 894 shares offered, were taken up by shareholders or third parties who acquired rights, through the ZSE.

The remaining shares were taken up by the underwriter, Zimnick Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mwana Africa Plc.
The rights offer take-up represents a 9,6 percent subscription.