KUVIMBA Mining House (Kuvimba, a state-owned company, says it is not acquiring a new asset this year, but is considering listing some of its existing units on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX).
Established in 2020, Kuvimba is 65 percent owned by the government, with the balance held by management through a Mauritius-based company, Quorus.
“We are not targeting to acquire any assets in this final quarter —that’s not part of our strategy this year. A large part of our strategy is to grow the assets that we have for this year; acquisitions are something that we do consider, but I can tell you that if you consider that we are almost at the end of the year,” Simba Chinyemba, Kuvimba chief executive, told The Financial Gazette on the sidelines of the ED-UNZA Scholarship Trust luncheon last week.
“We would know which assets we would be acquiring by now. Right now, there is no intention for us to acquire any assets because we have enough to deal with the assets that we have already acquired.”
“You will see other listings from Kuvimba, that is for sure, yes. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you what that is at the moment, but we are committed to listing a few more assets; we are in talks at the moment on that,” Chinyemba said.
“We have got a lot of processes to go through, and there is necessarily some confidentiality that comes with listing that we cannot divulge at the moment until the right time.”
Since its inception, the company has seen the performance of the underlying mining assets improve significantly.
In addition, the company has developed a vision underpinned by a value system to ensure the appropriate execution of its growth strategy.
The company’s subsidiaries include Freda Rebecca Gold Mine, the Shava Mining Company, the Jena Gold Mines, the Homestake Mines, Bindura Nickel Corporation, the Sandawana Mines, Zimbabwe Alloys Ltd, and Great Dyke Investments.
Kuvimba has invested more than US$150 million in capital projects that have allowed it to revive some of the mining businesses it purchased around the country.
Management at its subsidiary Sandawana Mine recently said significant progress has been made in preliminary metallurgical tests for onsite lithium mining and processing plans.
Sandawana was previously one of the world’s largest emerald mines, but it closed years ago after production fell and markets dried up. Kuvimba Mining House now intends to restart the mine as a lithium producer.
“We have done the first metallurgical test work and the results we got so far are very encouraging,” Sandawana’s general manager Godwin Gambiza told The Financial Gazette recently.
“We got around 73 percent recovery of the first metallurgical test work. … We have since assembled a team that’s going to work on the feasibility study,” he said.
Since starting its open-pit lithium mining operations in January of this year, the business has extracted and accumulated approximately 600 000 tonnes of high-grade lithium ore, with a market value of more than US$216 million.
Plans are for a 4,5 million-tonne per annum beneficiation plant and Kuvimba would invest US$250 million.
The mine has also started feasibility studies for the construction of a 60-megawatt solar plant as the company seeks to generate its own power.
The electricity produced by the plant would also benefit the local communities, according to management.