Emmerson Njanjamangezi, Group Features Editor 
FREDA Rebecca Gold Mine’s (Freda) managing director, Patrick Maseva-Shayawabaya, says Kuvimba Mining House (KMH) has expended US$25 million towards re-capitalisation of the mine since it took over operation in 2020.
The government owns 65 percent of KMH, which has three bullion-producing assets under its wings – Freda Rebecca, Shamva Gold Mine, and Jena Mines.
Shayawabaya told journalists touring the mine last week that KMH was eager to sink more financial resources to ramp up production at the country’s biggest gold mine in terms of output.
“Since Kuvimba took over, we have undertaken and commissioned a mill number 3 at a cost of US$13 million… mill number 3 is dedicated to processing ore from Shamva… we have also commissioned a return water dam and a floating penstock facility at a cost of US$6,1 million which improved the stability of the tailing storage facility,” he said.
“We have also just completed a thickener at a cost of US$1,8 million and we expect to commission it by the end of this quarter that we are in. During the same period, we also undertook an exploration programme within our lease area around Freda which cost around US$5 million.
“If you are looking at the totality of the projects we have on board, it’s worth about US$25 million from 2020 to March 2024.”
Apart from that, Shayawabaya said Freda was targeting to complete its exploration programme to add years to the mine’s life.
“At current rate of extraction, the life of mine is plus or minus five years. We need to increase that life and this exploration programme that we started is a start to extending that life beyond five years. It was a fairly successful programme.
“We spent US$900 000 and we generated 1,5 million tonnes of ore at a grade of 2,33 grammes, which is higher than our current open pit grade. The resource that was generated is what the geologists call inferred resource and it means that the confidence level in it is not high enough for us to mine,” he said.
Shayawabaya said Freda was targeting to do additional drilling so as to upgrade it from the inferred status to at least indicated status.
“All that it says is we have a high level of confidence in the grade and in the volume of ore that is available. That will cost us US$2 million to complete,” he further said.
For the first quarter that ended March 2023, Freda produced 603 kilogrammes of gold to achieve a two-percentage increase on the prior period, despite many hours of downtime due to power cuts.
With the electricity supply stabilising, Shayawabaya said the mining company would continue ramping up production.
“In terms of gold production, we produced just over 19 000 ounces (oz) for the quarter to June 2023, which was marginally up on the quarter to June 2022. When you look at it in terms of kilogrammes produced, it was 603kg compared to 592kg for the same period last year,” he said.
“We aspire to get that number to be above 20 000 oz, but as an overall assessment of the performance for the quarter, it was a good one for us despite the fact that we lost many hours due to power cuts. We were really able to compensate for that by higher throughput and also a higher grade.
“We had a grade of 1,53 for the quarter compared to 1,49 for the quarter and we were able to process more tonnage in that quarter. So, overall, a good quarter in terms of production and we are looking forward to achieving at least the same or better in the next quarter.” newsdesk@fingaz.co.zw
