Calvin Manika
RODNEY Trevor Cremer who grew up in Kamativi in the 1960s has exciting memories of a lively and active mining area where as young boys they were so thrilled by activities in the area.
Since 1985 things have changed, Cremer will not believe today’s state of the place he so much loved. But he is not alone, even the former mine workers who are still alive and some hanging around in the area are haunted by the affectionate memories of the glory past years of Kamativi.
The once bustling settlement now only carries memories of a once magnificent past, when tin prices were high and the mine was an oasis in the province alongside the Hwange Colliery Company Limited. Today it’s like a forsaken land. The mine produced tin and other by-products including tantalite niobium and lithium minerals.
Yesteryears buildings have walls broken down and lie in heaps. There is no water, and residents fetch water from a small dam about 4km away. It was once a big operation cited with pride in Zimbabwe. But in 1985, the world tin market collapsed. The International Tin Council crumpled and tin stocks fell through the floor. Tin mines began to shut down, from Indonesia, Thailand, to Kamativi in the arid corner of Matabeleland North. Kamativi Mine was opened in 1936 and the mine has close to 40 million tonnes of open cast tin reserves considered among the biggest in the world.
At its peak in the 1990s, Kamativi Tin Mine employed over 3 000 people. In 2015, the Government announced that it had secured a new investor, China Beijing Pinchang, to resuscitate operations under a $102 million investment, which would also see other mineral deposits that have been discovered at the mine such as tantalite and lithium being exploited.
The mine’s former workers through their committee, Kamativi Early Settlers Development Organisation, were pressing for the establishment of a small-scale mining syndicate to operate as a tributary once the defunct mine resumes operations.
Years passed without any development by the investor resulting in the parliament calling Chinese national, Shouming Lin, the managing director of Beijing Pingchang Investment company over the stripping of assets at Kamativi Tin Mine and failure to make a $100 million financial injection as promised in the agreement they made to invest in the mine with Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC).
In 2018 Lin appeared before the Temba Mliswa-led Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines. Mliswa warned ZMDC must be wary of entering into mining agreements without doing due diligence on investors, as some investors were not serious and were coming into Zimbabwe to loot and for speculative purposes.
Kamativi natural resources still attracts investors. The resuscitation of the mine is already underway through a partnership between the ZMDC and Canadian-based firm, Jimbata, which is owned by Zimbabweans. ZMDC started working on the tailings dump following the formation of a company called Kamativi Tailings Dump. The progress is being hindered by a legal battle pursued by Beijing Pinchang which approached the Supreme Court this year in January under case number SC75/20, challenging the High Court ruling granted in favour of Zimbabwe Lithium Company, the owners of Jimbata.
Jimbata hinted that at least 250 were on pipeline under the first phase of the Kamativi Tin Mine re-development programme, which requires US$33 million. Now the old tin mine is about to reinvent itself, but this time producing a different kind of metal – lithium. Drilling results at the Kamativi lithium project have indicated the resource is commercially viable, according to a statement released by Jimbata. This means plans to build a new $10 million plant at the site would move ahead, reviving a mine that last saw activity in 1994.
The Kamativi community has suffered over two decades of neglect and will celebrate the new project. Now demand for lithium has given Kamativi a chance at revival. The new investor said there is US$1.4 billion worth of lithium in the dumps at Kamativi, which first started mining tin 84 years ago. Zimbabwe is keen to develop its vast resources of lithium, as global demand for renewable energy rises. Lithium is used in the manufacture of batteries, some of which are used by Tesla. However, experts warn that Zimbabwe’s window to take advantage is very short as lithium supply is seen growing over the next few years.
On-going lithium projects in Zimbabwe include Prospect Resources, which has raised US$55 million on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) to develop its Arcadia mine near Harare. Prospect has contracted a local company, JR Goddard, as the construction contractor, and DRA to provide engineering services and upfront design for the project. Separately, Prospect has opened a new lithium carbonate pilot plant at Kwekwe, where the company has begun producing 99.5 percent battery grade lithium carbonate.
The Kamativi tailings storage facility is a man-made deposit that was created from dumps produced from processing of tin mineralisation at the KTM. The tailings were deposited between 1936 to 1994 and are derived from the mining and processing of the tin-bearing (spodumene-bearing lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatites. The spodumene is the predominant lithium, with minor amounts of cookeite, zinnwaldite, petalite and amblygonite. The Kamativi mine has reserves amounting to 100 million tonnes of tin ore grading 0.28% tin thus resulting 0.28 million tonnes of tin.
ZMDC appointed two local engineering companies, Virimai Projects, MMEP (Pvt) Ltd and environmental company Green Resources Company (Pvt) Ltd to assist in the ongoing development of the project for Kamativi Tailings Company (KTC). The legal dispute is delaying the re-opening of the mine. But once it is settled Kamativi is a key pillar in the development of Matabeleland North and Zimbabwe at large.
