The Hwange Colliery Company Limited and JCI ZimHwange Underground Mine Joint Venture Bearing Fruit  

The joint venture between Hwange Colliery Company Limited and JCI ZimHwange Underground Mine Joint Venture Bearing is now bearing fruit with the investment into the coal underground mine billed to produce 3 million tones of coking coal per annum has started producing 1.8 million tones of coal per annum.

Speaking during a tour of the underground facility the Hon. Minister of Mines and Mining Development, Winston Chitando, said that, it is very exciting that the Joint venture between Hwange and an investment partner is now bearing fruit.

Minister Chitando said that considering the technical and production capacities that have gone into the establishment of the mine, the Hwange Colliery Coke battery is set to be producing 18k tones of coke per annum.

“Hwange Colliery Pvt Ltd and partner are starting a strong foundation of a staggering 1.8 million tones of coal and the mining project is set to be the biggest in the country said Minister Chitando.

Minister Chitando set that, we are targeting 3m tone per annum once the mine is fully operation to produce coal that will be made into metallurgical and industrial coke.

The Minister revealed that the underground mine is also billed to develop the one of the largest coke batteries and start producing about 1.8m tones of coke per annum.

The ZimHwange Underground Mine Engineer Eng. Hakeem Mutiti, said that, at the site, “coal is intercepted at an inclination of 12 degrees, 200 metres under the ground about a kilometer from the outlet.”

Eng. Mutiti added that, At the bottom of the shafts are development tunnels producing 2.5 million tones of coal per annum.

He, said that as of next year the mine would be introducing sophisticated long haul mining equipment to produce an average of 210 tones of coal per mining area and the good thing about this method is that it will enable the mine to extract coal from 90% of the extraction are and that the miners will be able to extract coal from the whole 10 metre seam going down or along the shafts.

Eng. Mutiti added that soon the mine will be finishing the construction of a washing unit and coal will be brought by conveyor belt to the surface with the metallurgical coal already separated from the industrial coal.

“After washing the coal will be brought to the coke ovens that are going to produce coke oven gases to be used to generate 120 MW of electricity. The company is also going to install 2 power generating plants to produce 150 MW each and a combined 420 MW from the facility as of next year,” revealed Eng. Mutiti.

For the underground mine the joint venture has invested USD 60 million and are quantifying what is required for all the infrastructure and facilities to be installed at the mine.