Vedanta Zinc International CEO Deshnee Naidoo and COO Mark Munroe, holding trophy, flanked by manager Jacques Erasmus and VP projects Satish Kumar Krishnamoorthy
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Vedanta Zinc International company Black Mountain Mining has won the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy’s prestigious Health and Wellness Award.
Presented to the company at MineSAFE 2016, the award recognises the contribution of the company’s cataract surgery project to the advancement of health and wellness.
Black Mountain, located in the Northern Cape, is made up of the zinc-lead Black Mountain mine and Gamsberg zinc project.
The Black Mountain project provides community members who live in the Khai-ma municipality and the Namakwa district with access to sight-restoring surgery and the ability to live normal lives once more.
Since September 2012, the project has completed 1 251 cataract cases, with Black Mountain GM André Trytsman acknowledging the contributions of the Department of Health, the South African National Council for the Blind, Namomed, Peer Educators, Ladies Forum, Hope4Life, community and schools’ volunteers and Black Mountain employee volunteers.
Last year, London-listed Vedanta injected $400-million into the Gamsberg zinc project, where it has extended the reserves of the Southern African zinc assets it bought from a disinvesting Anglo American five years ago.
Vedanta Zinc International is headed by CEO Deshnee Naidoo.
The outlook for the zinc market over the next few years is positive, with the price forecast to reach a cyclical high of more than $3 800/t in 2018, according to research and consultancy group Wood Mackenzie.