RioZim chases $10m for gold mine restart

[miningmx.com] – ZIMBABWE’S RioZim, an associate of Rio Tinto in the country’s Murowa diamonds mine, is seeking to raise $10m through a rights offer to restart its Cam and Motor Gold mining project in the country.

RioZim is a diversified mining and exploration company in Zimbabwe. With a listing on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE), RioZim operates the Empress base metals refinery and has exploration and mining projects spanning gold and coal among other minerals.

Its Renco gold mine in Masvingo is one of the biggest in the country. It has now set its eyes on the Cam and Motor gold project, which it said: “… is of strategic importance to RioZim’s objective of stabilising’ cash flows.

“RioZim intends to mine the resources (at Cam and Motor) using the open cast mining for the first five years to a depth of 100 meters followed by underground mining,” the company said last week.

Exploration undertaken at the mine has shown that there are gold-bearing resources at an average of 4.8 grammes per tonne, translating to around 893,330 ounces of the precious yellow metal.

An order for a 1,500 tonne-per-day plant with capacity to produce 3,000 ounces of gold per month has already been placed while contracted companies will undertake drilling, blasting and hauling of ore to the plant.

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, John Mangudya said on January28 during a meeting with journalists that gold mining was one of the growth areas Zimbabwe was focusing on. The southern African country has large profile gold producing projects such as Freda Rebecca, Blanket, Falgold and Metallon Gold.

“Our growth areas are in mining-gold, coal, platinum and diamonds, tourism and horticulture. We want to mobilise resources to support these sectors,’ Mangudya said. The country’s mining sector is projected to grow by 3.1% this year.

Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) commissioner-general, Gershom Pasi, said that mineral royalty payments by Zimbabwean mining companies had amounted to $191.6m during the year to the end of December, boosted by payment of arrears by some miners.