News

June 26, 2008

Zimbabwe’s Problems Bite Hard At Bindura, And The Worst Of All Is The Exodus Of Skills

By Clemence Manyukwe in Zimbabwe

A bus leaves Harare every day heading north-east for a final stop in Bindura town, 88 kilometers away. The bus’s passengers are all mineworkers who disembark at Bindura Nickel Corporation’s (BNC) Trojan mine, one of the corporation’s two nickel mines. Apart from the Trojan mine, BNC – a company in which London-listed Mwana Africa has a 53 percent shareholding - also operates the Shangani mine.

“Our primary product is nickel cathode. We produce smaller quantities of by-products that are mainly copper and cobalt,” says BNC’s operations director Vaughan Smith, a man who has worked in the mining industry since 1975. Processing of concentrate from the two mines is done at the company’s Bindura Smelter and Refinery. “Apart from producing nickel from our own mines, we also carry out toll treatment. We treat material from mainly Botswana and South Africa. We also treat material from as far...