RESOURCES firm Kuvimba Mining House (KMH) is set to inject US$40 million into its gold operations, covering Freda Rebecca Gold Mine, Shamva Mine, and Jena Mines, in a strategic bid to ramp up production and optimise efficiency, businessdigest can report.
The investment will bolster the gold cluster's performance, according to Patrick Maseva-Shayawabaya, head of KMH’s gold cluster.
“(In terms of) capital expenditure for the year, for the cluster, we are looking at about US$40 million. That is the plan,” Maseva-Shayawabaya, who is also Freda managing director, told businessdigest in an interview on the sidelines of a tour of the mine this week.
“But not all of that capital expenditure is funded as yet. We have not secured the resources that we will need to implement all of those projects.
“A portion of it, I would say 50% of the capital expenditure, will come from internal cash flows but we will need to raise the balance so that we can implement those projects.”
For the year to March 2024, the group produced 104 000 ounces of gold and expects the figure to marginally increase by 1% to 105 000 ounces in the current year.
“That is essentially a result of the processing. The volume of all processed remains largely unchanged, perhaps a marginal increase in grade and a marginal increase in our processing efficiencies,” Maseva-Shayawabaya said.
“But otherwise, the building blocks for the production are just as much as they were last year.”
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To enhance accountability and transparency in its gold operations, the group has implemented a mine-to-market traceability system, aligning with international regulatory standards.
The company bemoaned intermittent power supply, caused by substandard infrastructure connecting it to the Bindura substation..
“We are affected by electricity shortages. One of the projects that we have here at Freda is to construct a seven-kilometre power line that will link us with the Trojan power line,” he said.
“We currently are supplied power from the Bindura supply substation. The infrastructure linking us up with that substation is substandard and, therefore, prone to faults.
“So we have got many faults, which are not linked to the supply of power, but to the fact that the quality of the infrastructure is not what it should be.
“So we have agreed with Zesa Holdings that we will fund the construction of that power line, which will improve the consistency of power and its availability, because we would not have as many breakdowns on the line as we currently have.”
Maseva-Shayawabaya also revealed that plans were underway to establish a solar plant with capacity to produce about seven megawatts of electricity.
“The plan that we have got is that, rather than investing directly ourselves in solar, we have entered into an off-take agreement with an investor,” he said.
“We will invest in a solar plant to feed us or to supply us some of the power at an agreed tariff. It will provide us with about 30% of our power. Our current requirement here at Freda is about 20 megawatts, so I would say it will probably do about seven megawatts.
“The agreement that we have got is that we have given an independent power producer an off-take agreement, and using that, he will go and be able to raise the funding to invest in the power plant. So we will not invest in it.”
KMH, which is wholly-owned by the government, acquired Bindura-based Freda in 2020 as part of a wave of mining asset purchases.
The group has extensive interests in gold, nickel, lithium, chrome and platinum.
