Mine excursion
The Moti Group has
established a unique chrome
operation in the Zimbabwean
Midlands, writes Leon Louw.
F
our years ago, few international
investors would have braved the
politically loaded landscape of
Zimbabwe. Back then, Robert Mugabe was
still firmly entrenched, and the plot that
would eventually lead to his demise was
probably just an unspoken thought in the
minds of one or two progressive politicians.
At the time, foreign investment had
become an intermittent trickle, but despite
the clear political and economic risks, the
Johannesburg-based Moti Group navigated
the political minefield and established a
chrome mine in the Midlands Province of
Zimbabwe in less than a year. The company
spent more than USD250-million to develop
a mine that would produce an expected
750 000 tonnes (t) of chrome ore per annum.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who
hails from the Midlands, has been a frequent
visitor to the alluvial deposit in the KweKwe
region, and is clearly an ardent supporter of
the operation.
“President Mnangagwa backed this project
from the start. But remember, we entered
Zimbabwe when Mugabe was still in full
control,” says Ashruf Kaka, CEO of the Moti
Group and national project liaison director of
African Chrome Fields (ACF). “The positive
political change, however, is clear to see just
looking at our production charts, which
have been moving north since Mnangagwa’s
inauguration,” adds Kaka.
The rise of ACF
RDTs offload material from the mining area onto stockpiles at the washing plant.
Once dried out, the slurry is then returned to the rehabilitation site.
The Moti Group constructed subsidiary
ACF’s first semi-mobile processing plant
in 2014. The chrome deposit, located in the
platinum-rich Great Dyke of Zimbabwe,
occurs on surface and therefore, strip mining
is the most appropriate method to use. The
area has been subject to extensive exploration
work in the past, and Anglo American
developed a pilot plant in the 1990s, which is
still in operation today. Since commissioning
its first plant (Plant 1) in 2014, ACF has
built five more, and Plant 7 is in the pipeline.
Plant 6 was commissioned towards the end
of April 2018. The chrome deposits are
found in several valleys spread over a large
JULY 2018 MINING MIRROR
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