Page 11 - AfrElec Week 49 2022

COAL
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Contango Holdings to begin coal

exports from Zimbabwe in 2023

ZIMBABWE LONDON-LISTED Contango Holdings (Con- estimated 1.25bn tonne indicated and inferred
tango), which is building a coal mine in western resource has been identified to NI 43-101 levels.”
Zimbabwe, is gearing itself up for greater exports Coal exports are proving lucrative for other
after receiving unsolicited inquiries from inter- African producers such as South Africa, Mozam-
national buyers, it has announced. bique and Botswana. South Africa, according to
Contango’s Lubu project has an offtake a Reuters report on Thursday (December 1), has
agreement of 10,000 tonnes of washed coal per seen an eight-fold increase in exports to Europe
month with AtoZ Investments (Pty) Ltd (AtoZ), after the bloc sanctioned coal exports by Russia
a specialist coal trading company based in South over its invasion of Ukraine in February.
Africa. It expects to make the first shipment by Looking forward to 2023, Contango said it
the end of December. is still targeting an expansion of these process-
In a release on Wednesday (November 30), ing facilities to enable the processing of 300,000
Contango said it had received a number of tonnes per annum.
requests for the regular delivery of thermal coal Contango holds 70% interest in the project
from a variety of international markets and is situated in Hwange, Zimbabwe’s most prolific
looking to finalise logistics to enable an export coal region. It focused mainly on producing low
solution. sulphur coking coal for ferro alloy and industrial
It expects that thermal coal could generate markets in southern Africa. However, the rising
margins of over $100 per tonne which could be prices of thermal coal, used in electricity genera-
further improved in the event the company is tion, has attracted Contango’s interest.
successful in its efforts to secure a rail transport “Fuelled by the dramatic rise in thermal coal
solution rather than trucking to port. prices over the past 12 months, from approxi-
“Preparation work is now underway on Block mately $125/tonne to $450/tonne, the board are
2, which was selected given the high-quality cok- now considering a coking and thermal oper-
ing coal found at that location and its proximity ation, delivering 10,000t of coking coal and
to surface. Studies have defined an estimated 10,000t of thermal coal per month based on
96Mt of coking coal within Block 2, which forms current capacity in H1 2023,” said the release.™
part of the broader Lubu complex, where an

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