By Sotunde Busayo
Fortune smile on Mwana Africa as its Freda Rebecca goldmine literarily struck gold amounting to an increase in revenue by 86 percent for the company. The London-listed resource exploration and development company recorded an $81.3million returns for the year ended in March.
This reduces the group’s loss to $6.7million from $11.5 million the year before – a decrease of 42%. The company’s loss to shareholders also reduced to $700,000 (79%).
The rise in gold production at the Zimbabwe goldmine will also help the company restart its nickel business at the Trojan nickel mine at Bindura, Zimbabwe.
The deal to revamp the nickel business is supported by a strategic partnership with state-owned China International Mining Group Corporation‚ which acquired a 22% stake for an investment of $32.8million.
“The group’s focus for the financial year has been on expanding production at Freda Rebecca gold mine to our target production rate of 50000oz a year‚ increasing the gold resource at our Zani-Kodo project in the DRC through continued exploration drilling‚ and evaluating various funding structures to enable the restart of operations at Bindura Nickel Corporation’s Trojan nickel mine‚” said Mwana CEO, Kalaa Mpinga.
“The restart plan for the Trojan mine involves the production of 7000 tons a year of nickel in concentrate‚ which will be sold to Glencore.
Production ramp-up is very quick‚ as would be expected‚ and the operation should reach steady-state production within 24 months‚” Mpinga said.
Mwana Africa bought a 52.9 per cent stake in BNC from Anglo American in 2003, but the Shangani and Trojan mines were closed in 2008 following production problems and a sharp drop in base metals prices.
Mwana deals in gold‚ nickel‚ diamond and other mines in Zimbabwe‚ the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Africa.
The company is presently working towards reviving operations at its Klipspringer diamond mine in South Africa.
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