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Business Reporter
Metallon Zimbabwe, the country’s biggest gold miner, expects output at its Mazowe Mine to jump 200 percent when it commissions a new dumps treatment plant, chief executive Mr Ken Mekani said in an interview.

Mr Mekani said assembling of the plant was almost done and the plant would lift Mazowe’s output to 2 700 ounces of gold per month and catapult the mine into second position in terms of contribution by volume.

The group’s biggest cash cow is How Mine, which achieved record output despite equipment challenges in the quarter to March 2015 after registering an 8 percent growth in output.

“That project will transform the face of Mazowe Mine. That plant will increase current production by over 200 percent,” Mr Mekani said. “It is going to have a significant impact on our group production,” he add- ed.

The plant, which is being manufactured by South African company Baldmin Engineering with 60 percent of its components completed, will enable the group to process a gold resource of 3,8 million, Mr Mekani said.

Mr Mekani said that the investment would extend Mazowe’s life of Mine by between four and five years. The mine currently accounts for 10 percent to 12 percent of volumes and with the investment, this will change.

While Mazoe should ideally be number four or five in terms of volumes contribution to the group, the investment is key to supporting production at a time the mining group is battling to bring its two other mines back on line.

“We are working on recapitalising Arcturus Mine. We have acquired equipment for the process and when completed, this will ramp up production,” he said. He said at Redwing, Metallon was “working on resuming production”

A total of $46 million and $73 million will be invested in Arcturus and Redwing mines respectively and this will add 664 000 ounces to group output.

Metallon has a programme in place to plough in a total of $294 million over a five-year period to 2019 towards expanding its gold mining operations. This will increase the group’s production from 90 000 to 150 000 ounces.

In the quarter to March 2015, Metallon registered an 8 percent increase in production to 24 385 ounces, but the performance was 15 percent below targeted output. Metallon said the Q1 shortfall was caused by equipment breakdown.

The problems encountered in Q1 have since been sorted out through an equipment replacement programme, the group said in March.

Highlights during Q1 included the fact one of the group’s main cash cows, How Mine, milled a record 32 130 tonnes when the gold mining group had been focused on ramping up productions at all its mines.

Despite the equipment challenges experienced in the first three months, Metallon has maintained its gold production guidance for the year at 150 000 tonnes and all in sustaining costs of approximately $970 for 2015.