News / Local
ZPC board tours coal mines
25 Apr 2016 at 06:48hrs | Views
ZIMBABWE Power Company (ZPC) board members on Friday toured coal supplying companies in Hwange to assess the miners' preparedness towards meeting supply as the country gears for increased power consumption in winter.
Speaking after touring Hwange Colliery Company Limited, Makomo Resources, Chilota and Coal Brick Mine, ZPC board chairman Engineer Stanley Kazhanje said the visit was to get an appreciation of how the companies were preparing for winter.
"The purpose of our visit is to meet our coal suppliers and to see the preparations that are being made for the winter programme in terms of supply of coal as well as to appreciate the problems they are having in terms of their mining. We also wanted to see their preparations to meet our Stage 3 expansion programme for Hwange 7 and 8," said Eng Kazhanje.
Sunday News reported that ZPC is producing a total of 973 megawatts from its Kariba, Munyati, Harare and Hwange power stations while 400MW are imports. Bulawayo power station is currently not generating due to a technical fault.
Hwange Colliery Company and Makomo Resources are the major suppliers of coal to ZPC feeding more than 200 000 tonnes per month.
HCCL managing director Thomas Makore said his company will continue supplying ZPC with coal and was ready to increase supplies once production increases.
"We have maintained our supply figure and we can supply more though, yes we have been unable to increase our supply because of the technical challenges we are facing with our own equipment. We are, however, seized with addressing that and we are confident that once sorted we should be able to ramp up. But what we need is working capital as mining is a high cost business so we need to ensure that we buy all the production inputs so that we are able to perform," he said.
Speaking after touring Hwange Colliery Company Limited, Makomo Resources, Chilota and Coal Brick Mine, ZPC board chairman Engineer Stanley Kazhanje said the visit was to get an appreciation of how the companies were preparing for winter.
"The purpose of our visit is to meet our coal suppliers and to see the preparations that are being made for the winter programme in terms of supply of coal as well as to appreciate the problems they are having in terms of their mining. We also wanted to see their preparations to meet our Stage 3 expansion programme for Hwange 7 and 8," said Eng Kazhanje.
Hwange Colliery Company and Makomo Resources are the major suppliers of coal to ZPC feeding more than 200 000 tonnes per month.
HCCL managing director Thomas Makore said his company will continue supplying ZPC with coal and was ready to increase supplies once production increases.
"We have maintained our supply figure and we can supply more though, yes we have been unable to increase our supply because of the technical challenges we are facing with our own equipment. We are, however, seized with addressing that and we are confident that once sorted we should be able to ramp up. But what we need is working capital as mining is a high cost business so we need to ensure that we buy all the production inputs so that we are able to perform," he said.
Source - Sunday News
