Zimasco carries out mining operations in its own right at Peak Mine and Railway Block in Shurugwi and at Valley Mine while tributor and co-operative miners are contracted to produce chromite ore from Zimasco-owned mining lease areas along the Great Dyke and Railway Block in Shurugwi.
Zimasco’s ferrochrome smelting operations are situated at Kwekwe. The smelter produces a high carbon ferrochrome product and has an annual production capacity of 180 000 tonnes. The smelting complex has six submerged electric arc furnaces with the following capacities:
The submerges electric arc furnaces are used for the reduction of chromite ore and produce a half clean alloy when tapped. An induction furnace of 3.5 MVA (3MW) is used to treat partially reduced fines recovered through hydraulic processing at the Alloy From Slag Plant (AFS)
| West Plant |
East Plant | ||
| No. 1 |
18MVA | No. 5 |
18MVA |
| No. 2* (Non operational) |
15MVA | No. 6 |
18MVA |
| No. 3** (Operating at 18MVA) |
30 MVA | ||
| No. 4 |
18 MVA | ||
Raw Material Preparation & Planning - insert image
Chrome Ore, fluxes, together with coke and coal are delivered by rail and road and once sized are placed in raw material storage bins. Weighing Conveyer Belt Systems produce a furnace blend which is stored in furnace holding bins, prior to being fed into the furnace.
Product Preparation
The tapped alloy is sent to the product preparation area where it is crushed and sized. A hand picking process in which slag is picked off a sorting belt upgrades the +12mm - 150mm product. The -12mm product is forwarded to the AFS plant where it is blended with crushed slag and subjected to a gravity concentration process.
AFS Plant
The AFS plant produces approximately 13 500 tonnes of alloy per annum from current arising slag and reprocessing of the existing old tailings dump. The slag is crushed and sized and together with the -12mm fraction from the product preparation process is sorted into alloy and dead slag in a mechanical gravity process using Batac Jigs (for the +3mm to 25mm material) and Delko Jigs (for -3mm material). The spiral plant separates the -1mm fraction into saleable alloy and non-saleable alloy which is re-melted at the induction furnace.
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Manjere Ranches is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zimasco Holdings (Pvt) Ltd and is situated in Zvishavane District. It is a cattle ranch that has been owned by Zimasco since 1968 and at its height of productivity, comprised of 47 119 hectares and was home to 6 500 head of cattle. Manjere played an active role in the economy through the export of beef as well as in the community through its ‘heifer-donation’ scheme. This scheme saw a number of communal farmers in the Zvishavane and Mberengwa areas benefiting from an annual donation of 200 heifers to grow and improve their cattle herds.
Shangani Energy Exploration (SEE) is a company that was formed to explore and develop a coal bed methane (CBM) resource within Zimbabwe. Zimasco Holdings (Pvt) Ltd holds 84.81% of SEE and the balance of 15.1% is held by Mr Paul Lweis Tromp.
