News

April 08, 2009

Caledonia Mining’s Blanket Gold Mine In Zimbabwe Will Be Back In Production Imminently

By Alastair Ford

That some measure of sanity seems to be returning to Zimbabwe is welcome news. The latest hard evidence of improvement comes with news of a restart from Caledonia Mining, a company that has a long history of production on the ground there, and which was among the last finally to throw in the towel last year and shut down operations. Thus at Caledonia’s Blanket gold mine you might almost say that the motors are still warm, it having only gone into care and maintenance mode at the end of October. Indeed, as far as the kit at Blanket goes, Caledonia chief executive Stefan Hayden goes further: “We’ve probably got the best equipment in the gold industry in Zimbabwe”, he says, on the basis that it’s been kept functional for a long period of time now, and that it’s been relatively well maintained by a workforce that by and large was kept on in the hope that things would improve. Now they have, Blanket is due for an imminent restart, and in addition to those that are already on the payroll, there are, says Stefan, crowds of people by the gates every day looking for work. Word is out, Caledonia Mining is back in business.

But at Blanket, just as in Zimbabwe in general, there’s a lot of catching up to be done. Fair enough the plant may be the best in Zimbabwe, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t long overdue for a bit of tender loving care. With the crazy currency regime that Zanu PF ran all the way up until the MDC took over the finance ministry at the beginning of this year it was very hard to earmark capital for general maintenance work. That means, says Stefan, that one of Caledonia’s first tasks, now that people...