LIVINGSTONE MARUFU
Gold deliveries to Fidelity Gold Refinery (FGR) increased by 35% to 25.66 tonnes in the first nine months of this year from 18.97 tonnes achieved in the prior comparative period on incentives, acting GM Peter Magaramombe has said.
“As at the end of September 2022, we were at 25.66 tonnes from 18.97 tonnes delivered the same period last year due to incentives put in place by the central bank which encouraged miners to deliver to FGR,” Magaramombe said.
Of the total gold production during the first nine months, 17.12 tonnes were delivered by the small-scale miners who account for 67% of total deliveries.
Big mining houses accounted for the balance.
Magaramombe said there was a combination of both good gold deliveries to FGR and firm international prices.
Yesterday, international gold prices stood at US$54 462 per kilogramme and Fidelity was paying around US$53 000 per kg.
With pricing firming due to the Russia-Ukraine war and global inflation, large-scale miners will get large export revenues thereby ramping up production.
Magaramombe said though the output was fairly good, there was still a long way to go to achieve an average of 8.3 tonnes per month to reach 100 tonnes a year.
He said the central bank commends the government for the Gold Incentive Scheme introduced in May 2021.
Gold deliveries to FGR started slowly at 3.97 tonnes during the first quarter then moved to 5.97 tonnes during the second quarter, 8.94 during the third quarter and 10.73 during the fourth quarter.
However, in subsequent months, gold miners delivered more than 18 tonnes due to the 5% incentive.
Analysts said there was a need to review retention levels for the large-scale miners and the capacitation of small-scale miners to ramp up production.
The government has moved to provide equipment in gold centres to move towards helping the attainment of US$4bn gold export revenue.
