Caledonia to sell its 12MW solar plant
Gold-focused mining company, Caledonia Mining Corporation says it has received an undisclosed offer from a global operator to buy its 12MW solar plant with the process of sale underway.
Hit by power cuts and an unstable grid, Caledonia’s Blanket mine had installed diesel power backup, but this has been expensive and unfriendly to the environment. In 2021, the company began building a solar farm next to the mine, after raising US$13 million from a share sale for the project.
The plant which was announced to be in operation exactly 12 months ago as Caledonia started generating electricity for its Blanket Mine, providing an alternative to unreliable and costly ZESA power, will be sold to the unnamed company as Caledonia wants to focus on mining and leave electricity generation to energy firms.
According to the company CEO Mark Learmonth, the solar plant is currently operating well and providing economic benefits for the Company extensively.
“The solar plant which was commissioned in early 2023 continues to operate well. The solar plant is owned by Caledonia rather than by Blanket and therefore the economic benefit arising from the solar plant has been realised in the consolidated all-in sustaining cost rather than the on-mine cost. An offer has been received from a global solar operator to buy the solar plant and the sale process is underway,” Learmonth said.
Blanket Mine
Blanket Gold Mine is a well-established Zimbabwean gold mine, which operates at a depth of approximately 750 meters below surface and produced approximately 55,000 ounces of gold in 2019. Blanket also holds brownfield exploration and development projects both on the existing mine area and on its satellite properties which are within trucking distance of the Blanket metallurgical recovery plant.
The Blanket Mine is located in the south-west of Zimbabwe approximately 15 km west of Gwanda, the provincial capital of Matabeleland South. Gwanda is 150 km south east of Bulawayo the country’s second largest city and 196 km northwest of the Beit Bridge Border post with South Africa, and 560 km from Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city. Access to the mine is by an all-weather tarred road from Gwanda, which is linked from Beit Bridge to Bulawayo and Harare by a national highway.