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Business Reporter

ONE of Zimbabwe’s largest mining firms, Kuvimba Mining House, intends to acquire exclusive prospective orders (EPOs) to extend its already extensive tentacles in the country’s mining industry.

This comes as the mine revealed plans to resuscitate the Club and Tiger gold mine in Kwekwe as part of the strategy to grow its asset base by acquiring and reviving mothballed assets.

The mining group revealed last week that it will acquire EPOs in order to drive the search for other strategic minerals across mineral rich Zimbabwe.

Already, Kuvimba, in which the Government is a significant shareholder, owns some of the country’s most valuable mining assets cutting across a range of minerals, including gold, platinum, chrome and nickel.

Freda Rebecca Mine (Kuvimba subsidiary) managing director Eliakem Hove, said the operations at the Club and Tiger Mine were still at the exploration stage while operations had begun at the Jena Mine.

“We have Club and Tiger in Kwekwe where we are still at exploration stage gathering information. Jena has actually added a name they are running their operations as we speak. 

“…at the group level that’s where we are looking throughout the country to getting some EPOs in strategic minerals and revive other idle mines,” said Mr Hove.

This comes after one of its major gold mines, Freda Rebeca, produced of a record 300 kilogrammes monthly in June this year  and has set itself a target to maintain monthly output of 280kg going forward.

Its largest gold operation, Shamva Gold Mine, is targeting to produce up to 400kg per month after having attained 48 000 tonnes of gold ore in July above a set target of 30 000.

Previously, Kuvimba had indicated intentions to revamp a number of idle gold mining operations across the country, which it said was key to enhance the nation’s export earnings.

Critically, efforts to grow the mineral production comes at a time when the global demand for minerals is on the rise. 

The Government of Zimbabwe launched the US$12 Billion mining industry by 2023 in October 2019, as part of the broader macroeconomic initiatives.

The US$12 billion mining industry by 2023 2ould represent a 344 percent growth from the US$2.7 billion registered in 2017.

Traditionally Zimbabwe issues 2500 mining titles per annum but due to increased appetite to invest mining, mining title applications have soared to about 15 000 per annum translating to a 500 percent increase. 

Zimbabwe is home to the world’s third-biggest reserves of gold, platinum, diamond, chrome, iron ore, coal, lithium, and other minerals and a reinvigorated minerals sector would go a long way in fuelling an economic turnaround.