BUSINESS REPORTER
Listed miner RioZim loss has widened to ZWL$20.04bn during the year ended December 31 2022 from ZWL$2.04bn during the comparable period the previous year due to a decline in production across most mines.
In a statement accompanying full-year results, RioZim chairman Saleem Beebeejaun said rolling power outages worsened the situation as this affected production.
“… the company continued to suffer from acute power supply challenges, which significantly weighed down the group’s efforts to increase production volumes. Foreign currency challenges and exchange rate distortions also continued to negatively impact the group’s profitability,” Beebeejaun said.
“Gold production recorded a 17% decline to 929kg from 1122kg produced in the prior year.”
RioZim focused on optimising the plant to bring it to name plate capacity and eliminating teething challenges hence production was subdued, after the commissioning of the BIOX plant at Cam & Motor mine.
It said the gold price remained firm and fairly consistent from the prior year and averaged US$1 766/ oz for the year compared to US$1 774/oz in the prior year.
Despite the drop in profitability, the group’s revenue for the year was ZWL$20.6bn, which was an exponential increase from the prior year’s revenue of ZWL$5.8bn mainly due to the depreciation of the local currency against the US$.
He said power supply challenges worsened at Renco mine in the current year, which significantly cut back production running time, resultantly, gold production dropped by 28% from the prior year’s production of 561kg to 402kg in the year under review.
The group is focusing on backup generators to lessen the negative impact of acute power supply deficits to the mine despite the higher operating costs these come with.
Dalny Mine Dalny was placed under full care and maintenance from the beginning of the year after it ran out of open pit resources that could be mined economically at sustainable grades.
Resultantly, there was no production during the current year that is in contrast to the 209kg produced in 2021 when the mine was fully operational.
The mine embarked on small-scale mining operations, which were at an advanced stage as at year-end In order to reduce the cash flow impact of the fixed care and maintenance costs.
The group was focused on the resumption of mining operations at the Cam & Motor pits in preparation for the running of the BIOX plant, which was at the completion stage at the beginning of the year.
Mining operations at One-Step were discontinued at the close of 2021 hence no gold was produced from One-Step in the current year and RioZim continues to evaluate all available options for the future exploitation of its One-Step resource.
Cam & Motor Mine Mining operations commenced from the refractory sulphide Cam & Motor pits as the year started to pave the way for the commissioning and bringing into production the BIOX plant.
The resources group said the BIOX plant was successfully brought into production in February 2022 in test mode and successfully commissioned in April 2022.
“The mine, therefore, produced 527kg for the year thus achieving a 50% growth compared to 351kg produced from One-Step mining operations in the prior year. Despite this, the plant operated well below its capacity due to supply challenges as with our other operations,” Beebeejaun said.
Murowa Diamonds managed to complete and bring to production its Project Crown Jewel 500tph plant in the second half of the year.
The forecast production upside from the plant will, however, only reflect after year-end as a focus in the current year was on stabilising and optimising the plant, RioZim said.
