Munali Nickel Mine Re-Opens

President Edgar Chagwa Lungu, this morning, commemorated the re-opening of Munali Nickel Mine in Mazabuka District.
Munali Nickel Mine has been off operations for the last eight years since being placed under care and maintenance.
Consolidated Nickel Mines (CNM), a UK based firm acquired the rights to operate the mine from the owners Jinchuan Group out of China in 2014 and has invested more than US$55 million to revive the nickel mine.
CNM, through its local subsidiary, Mabiza Resources Ltd (MRL) has completed numerous studies on the Munali property to improve the economics of the operation to enable the mine to come back into production.
After successfully securing re-start finance in the order of US$40million, the decision was taken in June 2018 to bring the mine back into production with the first ore production planned for quarter one, 2019. All key personnel have since been recruited.
On 14th September 2018 after seven years of care and maintenance, a successful blast underground was undertaken. Construction of the first ever Dense Media Separator (DMS) Plant in Zambia, which will improve head grade from 1% to 2% and improve recoveries.
The recommencement of mining and processing activities is expected to impact 400 direct jobs while an estimated 350 indirect jobs will be created through contractors, subcontractors and spillover effects as a result of operations at the mine.

By Chris Phiri, Zambia Reports