Xinhua reported that small scale chrome miners in Zimbabwe have failed to set up a single smelter, almost two years after the government banned exports of raw chrome to encourage value addition to the mineral resource.
Mines and Mining Development Permanent Secretary Prince Mupazviriho told Xinhua in an interview that no smelter had been established in the country since the ban in April 2011 that is meant to force processing of the mineral before it is exported.
On whether the government will consider lifting the ban in the wake of repeated calls by small-scale miners, he said the matter had ceased to be a ministerial issue but is now being dealt with at Cabinet level.
Mr Mupazviriho said that “Considerations are being made but now at a broad, government level. I don’t think it would make sense to lift the ban while we continue to export jobs and raw materials without beneficiation. We want the true value of the commodity and if we are looking at lifting the ban these are the issues we will be looking at.”
A representative of the miners Thomas Gono said in July that investors were not forthcoming to partner them while local banks were also not keen to lend them money to establish smelters.
He said that “We have the desire to set up smelters but we need substantial amounts of money to set up smelting plants with long life spans. Most of our members have (chrome) resources that are in the periphery and it is very difficult for them to court investors using these resources.”
Since the ban, the miners have stockpiled over 25,000 tonnes of raw chrome. Gono said the miners were reluctant to sell their product (mostly chrome concentrates and fines) to local smelters at unviable prices.
He said local smelters offered around USD 60 per tonne of lumpy chrome, almost half the price in external markets.
The country has two large-scale chrome smelters, ZimAlloys and Zimasco. ZimAlloys is operating at a very low base due to old equipment, and is currently looking for 60 million U.S. dollars to reconstruct its furnaces.
