Friday, March 29, 2024

Nickel mine builds own power line

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Zambia is on track to complete the construction of a dedicated power supply line to its first nickel mine where production of 8,600 tonnes of nickel will commence mid-year, an industry official said.

Sixtus Mulenga, general manager of Albidon Zambia Ltd., a unit of Australia’s Albidon Ltd. said the building of a power line to supply electricity only to the Minali nickel mine was progressing well.

“We have a dedicated power line from Kafue Gorge to make sure that we have power all the time. Construction of the power line is progressing very well and we should be commissioning production at the mine mid this year,” Mulenga told Reuters.

Mulenga was speaking late on Monday during a visit to the Munali nickel mine by eight directors of the International Monetary Fund who are in Zambia to assess economic development and inspect some of developmental projects.

He said Albidon had agreed to finance the power line at a cost of $3 million stretching nearly 70 km (44 miles) from Kafue Gorge power station to Munali Hills, south of the capital Lusaka.

Albidon was constructing its own power line to have sufficient power supply at the mine and avoid power outages, which have affected the rest of Zambia’s copper and cobalt mines.

Nearly all the copper and cobalt mines have slashed output due to power shortages which have worsened in this mineral-rich country of 12 million people since January this year.

Mulenga said Albidon Zambia also had long-term plans to set up a nickel smelter. He gave no further details.

In 2007, Albidon Zambia said annual production would comprise approximately 8,600 tonnes of nickel, 1,400 tonnes of copper, more than 400 tonnes of cobalt and 15,000 ounces of platinum group metals (PGM) in concentrate per annum.

Zambia is one of the world’s top copper and cobalt producers but Munali nickel mine will be the country’s first producer of nickel.

The Munali nickel mine has a 10-year life-span which could be extended through further exploration.

18 COMMENTS

  1. The dedicated power line for Munali nickel mine is not a solution in itself. Yes it is important that the mine like all other primary industries including secondary and tertially ones and SMEs as well as the general citizenry have access to adequate electricity in order to realise optimal output. To me dedicated lines are not an answer. The solution lies in changed management abilities and capabilities at ZESCO. Currently the company or is it management seems to have no direction. The situation at ZESCO could be described as diseconomies of scale arising maybe from failure to managing an entity because of the size of the company and incompetence.

  2. Atleast this is news worth LT Not every day its Sata.
    # 2 well i agree with u on ZESCO’s management incompetence,i think the move Albidon shud b commended.this is real investment as production wont b affected by Sisala’s negligence.

  3. The joy must not be in how fast the new mine can get started to operate, but in how much revenues we as Zambians will gain from its operations. If the mining agreements are excluding the citizens of Zambia then they are not worth the paper they are written on. We cannot say that what is good for Levy is good for Zambians since the agreement is only known by him alone. The idea that corporates will pay tax as the only way to benefit the country is rubbish. Companies employ guys whose education is far superior than nearly all permanent secs in Zed. In this way, they can sniff loopholes in our system and declare losses when ever it suits them.

  4. Nickel mine maybe you are our savour,pls extend your power lines to compounds in Lusaka (since APAMWAMBAs in Kabulonga, Northmead, Longacres, Sunningdale, etc. are not affected)so that we do away with animal BLACKOUT LOADSHEDDING ZESCO SCISSOR! ALA TWACHULA MWABANTU MUTULEEEEEEE!!!

  5. #2, i dont quite follow your argument,while i understand what you re saying about ZESCO, to me bypassing them for a large undertaking like the Nickel mine is precisely the solution.Why should a mine wait for Sisala and co to get their act together if they can just drop them from their operational equation? yes the rest of the country can wait, but those can cut them, why not, im actually putting solar at my house

  6. #6, what I mean is the present form of ZESCO, it will be more appropriate for Nickel mining company to also take over power generation at Kafue gorge. Otherwise, if generation still remains a responsibility of ZESCO ltd under the current management problems will be endless.

  7. #7 – Dickson, You do not know who these Nickel mining guys are, their background, their past achievements, and their record in being a trustworthy company. Why are you Zambians this naive, trusting anybody with critical resources and assets? Look at Zambia Railways. You give away a critical asset and see what you have got operating now as arailway company. Why do you want to give out a critical task of power generation to foreigners, whose motive for coming to Zambia is to make money?

    As for ZESCO, all it needs is proper management not relatives of Levy to wait his time in state house. We need serious Zambians to run our institutions. Right now too many of these are run by boneheads

  8. I think i agree with #2, the line won’t asolve the power supply problem. if i understand the nickle mining guys correctly, ‘ Albidon was constructing its own power line to have sufficient power supply at the mine and avoid power outages, which have affected the rest of Zambia’s copper and cobalt mines.’ yet power generation still remains under the incompetentsisala and stoggies. it comes back to the same thing, if there will be no power flowing through the line what good would the construction of power do to the mine. fire sisala and his stoggies and you solve the power generation and transmission and then it will make sense for the undertaking the mine is doing.

  9. #8 Sad Sambian, If you can critically read through #2, #6 and #7, I did not mean concessioning ZESCO to foreigners no. I said unless ZESCO improves electricity generation, the building up of the dedicated power line by Nickel mine co. will not solve the problem of power shortages at the mine. If there is anyone with knowledge of how this mine company will be supplied with uninterrupted electricity, they can share with us.

  10. I totally agree with sad Sambian.There are a lot of Educated n smart zambians out there.Both at home and abroad.We shouldnt always trust foreigners to run our key industries,most of them if not all of them are just after making dollar n have got no passion whatsoever for mother Zambia.We know they got the cash,but i mean if we also put our house together.We can come up with something tangible and able to run things on our own with passion for mother zed.

  11. Ok Dickson i do see your point now. Perhaps this lends wait to suggestions that ZESCO must probably be unbundled so that investments can be more targeted at individual units such as generation, transmission or distribution. However i agree that the state must retain control of generation

  12. These power deficits are not only affecting Zambia but the entire central and southern africa countries.Almost all the eletricity utility companies cannot explain this sudden deficit. Afew days ago Florida in the USA was plunged into darkness due to a power deficit the utility company could not explain it either. Instead of the simplistic ans cheap view of pblaming Sisala we should look at the matter in more depth and more seriously. This is an interesting phenomenon

  13. # 13.Zambia generates its on power.We dont tap power from the same source with SA or Florida,that excuse z useless & i find it annoying.
    So if America has power deficits then its ok 4 Zambia.People lets be innonative.

  14. You are all confused,read between the lines.One development is a getway to the other.Certain services should be well aligned to pave way for a particular development.The operations of a mine has 100% reliance on power that is generated by an incompetent company,full of dunder heads,got jobs because of their relatives,engineers who lack practice because they are lead by some unimformed personel.Zambia as a nation will never amount to anything we are all caught up in a jig saw puzzle.I dont even know wyh am commenting cause we will never learn

  15. it surely a well meaning development please albidon mine go ahead we are proud of you in mazabuka.

  16. we need to see albidon also employee local people at least a certain good percentage other than pulling pipo fron cb.

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