According to The Zimbabwe Daily, Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) will this week receive $30 million worth of mining equipment from BELAZ in Belarus, paving way for the start of conglomerate diamond mining at Chiadzwa.
The report said that speaking after officially launching the $50 million funding for small-scale miners at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair Exhibition Centre on Thursday, Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa said he was satisfied with the progress at ZCDC and components of its strategic plans aimed at improving production at its Marange and Chiadzwa fields in Manicaland Province. “You are aware that we are expecting equipment to come in from Belarus and that earth moving equipment is going to be in the country first week of May,” said Minister Chidhakwa.
The equipment was acquired under a local facility arranged by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) and is earmarked for upgrading and re-designing mining operations. It is part of several loans Zimbabwe is getting from Belarus to support productive sectors. Minister Chidhakwa said ZCDC has also managed to raise $80 million following the presentation of its strategic plan to the Minister of Finance and Economic Development Patrick Chinamasa and the RBZ Governor Dr John Mangudya, which would go towards acquiring more equipment and exploration activities.
“They (ZCDC) made presentations to the Minister of Finance (and Economic Development Chinamasa) and RBZ Governor Dr Mangudya). I am happy to report that because of that interaction ZCDC was able to put together a resource of $80 million.”
Conglomerate diamonds are found in rock consisting of individual stones (larger than sand) that have been cemented together and require highly mechanised machinery to extract. “We are hoping to support that earthmoving equipment with processing equipment for conglomerates and exploration equipment. We need to have solid exploration equipment. The first aspect in any mining activity is exploration. You need to know what you have. You need to have a resource statement. That resource statement will tell you the size of the mine that you are going to build, the kind of equipment that you require and the amount of resource that you are going to spend. So, most of the $80 million is going to be devoted to exploration while some of it will be devoted to mining equipment,” said Minister Chidhakwa.