Browsing: gold

Riozim Limited the Zimbabwe based, and Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed diversified miner, has more going wrong for it than right. For…

Padenga Holdings Limited fits this description in letter and spirit. During the six months under review, the company achieved US$ 57 million in revenues, which was more than double what the company achieved the previous year. The company increased its revenues by 184% from US$ 20 million in 2021. The company’s mining operations contributed 91% of the revenues.

The crocodile operations contributed a negligible US$ 5 million to the top line. If this trend continues, supported by the elevated gold prices, it would not be unreasonable to surmise that Padenga will soon become a pure-play gold producer or even diversify into other precious metals.

The crocodile business could soon be a thing of the past since gold mining activities have largely eclipsed it. This is all speculation as the company has not made an official statement on the future strategic direction of the company.

Caledonia’s chief executive, Mark Learmoth, speaking of the Bilboes Project called it a “premier gold development project in Zimbabwe and one of the best gold development projects in Africa”.

Through its acquisition strategy, Caledonia is steadily and certainly transforming itself from being a single mine operator to one where it produces a single commodity but operating various mines and mining projects. The company’s boss called this transaction a “transformational asset” and said it was the next step in Caledonia’s journey to becoming a multi-asset mid-tier gold producer.

Prior to its acquisition strategy Caledonia operated a single mine in Zimbabwe which is the Blanket Mine situated in Gwanda, in the Matabeleland South province of Zimbabwe. The company targeted producing 80,000 ounces of gold from its mine in 2022. The acquisition of the Bilboes project, considering that it will produce 168,000 ounces of gold annually over its 10-year life of mine, means that Caledonia will exceed its annual gold production target by at least 3 times!

Interestingly if the US$9 million which the company said it lost from the statutory surrender requirement is added back to the top-line revenue, it will take the company’s revenues for the 2021 financial year to just above US$ 24 million which would be higher than what it achieved in 2020. This policy position which the company lamented needs revision by the authorities as it is inflicting real financial harm to companies that are Zimbabwe’s biggest exporters and earners of foreign exchange.

In the 2021 financial year, Padenga Holdings Limited incurred higher interest expenses at US$ 10,138,637 which was up from US$ 6,665,084.00 the previous year. The increase in this cost category was due to leverage and borrowings which Padenga employed in rehabilitating the Eureka gold mine which is now in full production and is also responsible for the increase in group revenues.

The company enjoyed increased production from its gold mining operations. The company sold a staggering 976 kilograms of gold which was higher than the 722 kilograms of gold sold in 2020. The increase in gold production came from the newly commissioned Eureka gold mine. From its crocodile operations, Padenga Holdings Limited sold a total of 55,341 skins which was less than the 72,244 skins it sold in 2020. The Zimbabwe crocodile operation sold 39,936 skins down from 43,254 skins that it sold in 2020.

Large-scale miners supplied nine tonnes of gold over the time, according to FPR, the country’s lone buyer of gold, lagging output from small-scale producers, which delivered 13 tonnes.
Bullion output fell slightly to 1,38 tonnes in April, then jumped to 1,66 tonnes in May before soaring to 2,92 tonnes in June.
According to the study, July’s output was 2,82 tonnes before climbing to 3,17 tonnes and 3 tonnes in September and October.

Gold exports accounted for 43 per cent of goods exported by the year ending September 2021 The Tanzanian shilling is…

Since then the company has pursued a highly aggressive growth strategy constituting of both organic and acquisitive growth. Sibanye in a very short space of time acquired the Cooke operations from Gold One International in 2013 and the Burnstone project from Wits Gold the following year. The aim of this aggressive growth strategy was to produce more sustainable gold operations. 

The story of growth did not stop there. 

Soon the company set its sights on the platinum sector and began to snap up various interests and operations in that space. In 2016 Sibanye acquired the Aquarius Platinum’s Rustenburg operations namely Kroondal mine as well as the Platinum Mile treatment facility in South Africa and in Zimbabwe it took over the Mimosa joint venture with Impala Platinum. Later that year the company also bought the Rustenburg operations of Anglo Platinum.

Lesotho has finalized a new tax treaty with Mauritius, alleviating fears in the southern African nation that multinational corporations were…

Tanzania has earned a record $3 billion from gold sales as price for the precious metal soars in the…

Tourism was Tanzania’s leading source of forex—this according to data from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism—but that was only true before the global Covid-19 pandemic hit.

Statistics from the ministry show that the country earned an impressive USD2.5B from the tourism sector in 2019. That was the highest it would rake in before Covid-19 befell the world in 2020.  To date, the future looks grim.

The effect of the global pandemic on Tanzania’s economy in general has been devastating. Consider the fact that earnings from the travel subsector have plummeted by more than half its pre-pandemic earnings.