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HWANGE Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) expects to boost underground coal production five-fold this month when it restarts operations after a two-year hiatus, a company official said.

The resumption will help the loss-making company tap more lucrative deposits of coking coal, used to make steel as it seeks to report its first profit since 2012.

Zimbabwean miners who produced two million tonnes of coal last year are targeting 10 million tonnes of output in two years, which would enable them to begin exporting the fuel.

Underground mining will restart at Hwange once remaining pieces of equipment have been delivered, acting Managing Director Sheppard Manamike said in an interview in Harare on Monday.

Operations were halted in 2016 when a machine known as a continuous miner broke down.

“We will now be ramping up production to 50 000 tonnes a month from 10 000 tonnes, which we were producing in December as we are now resuming underground mining,” Manamike said.

The resumption of underground mining will cost $5 million in capital equipment.

Zimbabwe has five coal-mining companies that supply coal to state-owned Zimbabwe Power Company, which requires 240 000 tonnes of the fuel a month.  — Bloomberg.