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Kamativi Tin Mine in Matabeleland North Province

Senior Business Reporter
A PILOT plant for the estimated $1.4 billion lithium mining project at Kamativi Mine is now on site, paving way for full scale exploitation of the strategic mineral, the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC), has said.

ZMDC acting general manager, Mr Garikayi Chimhina, said in a telephone interview yesterday that the pilot plant was moved to site last week. He said a technical team from ZMDC would be at Kamativi this week to inspect the plant.

“The lithium pilot plant is now on site and our technical team will be on site this week to inspect the plant. We have been informed by our security officers there that the plant that has been delivered on site but its old machinery that was somewhere at a gold mine in Shamva,” he said.

“So, there are two issues that we have to deal with regarding the plant. We have to verify that the machinery that has been supplied is really for lithium and also that it is new.”

If established that the equipment does not meet required specifications as per contract with China Beijing Pinchang, Mr Chimhina said necessary procedures would be taken.

“On Friday last week we had a meeting with the Chinese where we asked them to give us a shipment list of the machinery, which documentation we were not given. If the machinery is not designed for lithium operations they have to take it off site,” he said.

“If it’s not new, that will be prejudicial to ZMDC and the country at large, and thus we will follow rightful procedures for breaching of a contract.”

The lithium mining pilot project is expected to run for a period between six to eight months employing between 50 and 100 people before full-scale production begins at the mine.”

It is hoped that once full-scale lithium production begins at Kamativi, the mine will employ up to 700 people. Kamativi Tin Mine closed operations in 1994 when the international price of the resource plummeted to $3 000 a tonne overnight from $18 000 a tonne. At its closure, the tin mine was employing about 3 000 workers and still had a life span of over 40 years.

In 2015, ZMDC secured a new investor, China Beijing Pinchang, to resuscitate operations at Kamativi Tin Mine under a $102 million investment deal.

Following exploration activities that have since been carried out at the defunct mine, massive lithium deposits have been confirmed prompting ZMDC to come up with a restructured business plan for Kamativi mining operations where lithium will be the major mineral to be extracted at the mine. Tantalite and bellarium are some of the minerals that have also been confirmed at the Matabeleland North-based Kamativi Mine.

Meanwhile, resuscitation of tin operations at Kamativi is underway after ZMDC partnered a Canadian-based company, Jimbata, which is owned by Zimbabweans to work on the tailings dump. Under the first phase of the project, at least 350 jobs will be created at the tailings dump that is expected to be processed over 10 years with a total investment of $33 million needed.

@okazunga