Zimbabwe invites investment in underground chrome mining – by Martin Creamer (MiningWeekly.com – November 8, 2017)

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JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Zimbabwe on Wednesday invited chrome mining investors to focus on underground chromium operations rather than cheaper strip mining operations, from which most of the country’s chromium ore is currently extracted.

In a keynote opening address to the packed 33rd Chromium Conference, Zimbabwe’s Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development Munesushe Munodawafa expressed the view that the future of chrome mining in the country lay in underground mining rather than the current opencast methods, which he described as being limited in both quantity and quality.

“The future of chrome mining in Zimbabwe is in the developing of underground operations,” Mundowafa told the record number of 260 delegates from many parts of the world. He urged investors in underground chrome-mining operations also consider partnerships with Zimbabwe’s small-scale miners.

“While we have moved on empowerment of the small-scale miners, we do appreciate – and it’s something we are looking at as a policy issue going forward – that they may have limited capacity in terms of capitalisation, and now there are two things that we want to mention here – one is that we acknowledge that these small-scale miners may not be able to go into underground mining to a great extent, but to indicate that they’re open to partnerships,” Munodawafa added at the conference attended by Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly Online.

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