Pigment manufacturer eyes value addition

NDAMU SANDU IN DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA

Pigment manufacturer Nyanza Light Metals will use its Richards Bay plant to add titanium mineral ores on the continent as the company pushes to get more value from the resource, CEO Donovan Chimhandamba has said.

The company has completed the US$20m first phase and is commissioning plants and equipment.

The plant will produce 300 tonnes per annum, enough to give paint manufacturers such as Kansai Plascon and Nash Paints, among others, to sample since they import pigment, Chimhandamba said.

The second phase, to cost US$350m, will take about two years and will culminate in an output of 80,000 tonnes per year.

“Africa has titanium mineral ores in South Africa, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. So instead of those raw materials exported out, value addition must happen on the continent. So some of these materials will come to South Africa and value addition happens. By the time it leaves, instead of exporting raw material for US$120 per tonne, we are exporting a product worth US$4,000 per tonne. So that gap is where we have been missing in Africa because of no value-adding industry,” Chimhandamba said.

But with a capacity of 80,000 per annum, Nyanza will not be able to meet the market demand. The executive said Nyanza’s entry into the field will reduce Africa’s dependence on imports.

“If you look at South Africa alone it’s 35,000 tonnes per annum, Egypt is 45,000 tonnes per annum and Nigeria is 25,000 tonnes per annum. So these three countries form almost 70% of Africa’s requirement of 130,000 to 150,000 tonnes per annum.

“Currently we are importing all of this. The sad part is that the raw material to make pigment is mined in Africa.

“Africa contributes close to 45% of titanium primary ores but we have zero beneficiation,” Chimhandamba said.

The first phase was bankrolled by shareholders and Afreximbank. There are funders waiting to pour in money into the second phase, the executive said.

“In the first phase we attracted Afreximbank and we have appointed them as a mandated lead arranger. They coordinate all the banks. In terms of their role, they are already oversubscribed with interested banks wanting to participate,” he said.