In Mozambique, the Provincial Director for Mineral Resources and Energy in Manica province, Olavo Deniasse, has reported that specialists from a Japanese mining company have been prospecting for coal in the province’s Mossurize district. He did not identify the company.
He told the Noticias newspaper in Maputo that these specialists had held a meeting to follow up on the results of the exploration. He also noted that, while there were indications that there was coal in the district, it had not yet been determined if the mineral was present in sufficient quantity to make mining commercially viable.
The Japanese enterprise wished to determine whether (following an environmental impact study) the deposits would be commercially exploitable and what the probable life-of-mine would be. Manica is one of Mozambique’s landlocked western provinces, bordering on and located south of the coal-rich Tete province.
Deniasse stated that the geological zone in which the prospecting was being conducted was a Karoo formation. Karoo formations do exist within the borders of Mozambique, although they represent only a small portion of the country’s geology, mostly close to the borders with South Africa and Zimbabwe, although Karoo subcrops cover a substantially larger area. Manica hosts the major Karoo formation within the country.
In addition to coal, gold, precious and semi-precious stones and limestone have been identified in Manica. Further, the most recent researches have indicated that diamonds may be found in the province, on the border with Zimbabwe and along the Save river, which is in the south of Manica.
Currently, the biggest problem facing Mozambique’s coal sector is inadequate transport infrastructure to carry the mineral to ports for export. Until now, the operational mines in Tete province have had to rely on the inadequate Sena line to the port city of Beira. Upgrading this line has been a major concern of the country’s ports and railways company, CFM.
The APA news agency has reported that the Mozambique government has set a deadline to the (unnamed) contractor and supervisor for the Sena line upgrade to explain their failure to meet the deadline for the completion of the project. The upgrade was meant to have been finished by the end of the first quarter of this calendar year. Responsibility for the upgrade is vested in the Sena Line Reconstruction Brigade.
The upgrade of the 575 km railway from the coal-producing Moatize district, near Tete city, is expected to cost €163-million. It will increase the line’s cargo capacity from the current 6.5-million tons a year (Mt/y) to 20-Mt/y. The deadline for explanations was apparently given by the country’s Transport Minister, Carlos Mesquita, during a recent visit to the railway. He was, however, reported to be satisfied with the technical quality of the work being done.
A second route to the sea, developed by Brazilian mining group Vale, which is producing coal from the Moatize mine, is due to come into full operation in the very near future. This is the Nacala railway, which runs from Moatize via Malawi to the Mozambique port of Nacala.