Supreme Court has declared that Chamisa is not the legitimate President of MDC Zimbabwe.
The dismissal of the appeal must reinstate Dr Khupe as the proper leader of the Movement for Democratic Change and the opposition party will go back and start from February 15, 2018.
See live report below
https://www.facebook.com/openparlyzw/videos/224706138642118/
In an unfortunate incident, the body of an artisanal miner who was trapped in a gold mine shaft in Penhalonga was finally retrieved after spending a week underground.
Manicaland provincial police spokesperson, Inspector Tavhiringwa Kakohwa said Panashe Dube, 22, had been in the company of his colleagues, Grey Dube, 46, and Tapiwa Dube, 20, when tragedy struck.
“The horrific accident occurred on Sunday last week. Dube went down the shaft. While he was down the shaft, it collapsed and trapped him,” the police spokesperson said.
Grey Dube rushed and reported the incident to the police who attended the scene in the company of Redwing Mine rescue team.
Kakohwa said attempts to retrieve Dube’s body failed at the time.
“The body was retrieved after a week of searching and post-mortem was conducted. However, no foul play was suspected,” said Kakohwa.
He said safety measures must always be taken before any mining activities are carried out.
“Miners should inspect their mines and make sure that safety precautionary measures are observed,” said Kakohwa.
NewZimbabwe
Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR) General Manager Mr. Fradreck Kunaka has shed some light on the operations of FPR until the end of the stipulated Zimbabwe lock-down announced by President Mnangagwa.
Zimbabwe like most countries affected with the Covid-19 Virus imposed a 21day lock-down that began today Monday the 30th March 2020. Mining Zimbabwe spoke to the man at the helm of the country’s sole buyer who shed some light on the state institution’s operations for the duration of the lock-down.
Mr Kunaka said, “In line with the need for proactiveness and Government Directives, in working towards minimising the impact of COVID 19 on employees and those we are in contact with, as from March 30 to April 30, 2020, FPR has reviewed business working hours as follows from, Monday to Friday we open at 0900hrs to 1515hrs. All employees whose duties can be performed from home have stopped coming to work. Those not feeling well do not report for work”.
Kunaka also emphasised the importance of spending less time in FPR branches and social distancing saying,”It is imperative that when visiting offices or any of our branches, one should not stay for more than 10 minutes and also to try and maintain the social distance of 2 metres. We are also providing sanitisers to visitors and providing masks for those who will be getting into confined places where maintaining the social distance is not possible”.
When asked if the Sole buyer had shelved any events Kunaka said, “FPR has not cancelled any events for now but has put in place measures to manage gatherings in line with the Government directives. These include restricting the numbers entering the buying offices at any one time in addition to those covered under”.
Mining has now been exempted from the shutdown after ZMF President’s application to have the sector listed as an essential service whose operations require continuous processes may operate with the minimum staff required for the care and maintenances of its operations as stipulated in the SI. Any miner/company willing to continue with operations during this 21 Days lockdown should read this document HERE
FPR is the largest security, commercial printing company, sole gold buyer, refiner and exporter of gold in Zimbabwe.
FPR can be contacted on
Harare
Address:No. 1 George Drive, Msasa, Harare
Phone: +263 242-486670, +263 242-486694, +263 242-487131, +263 242-447810-5
An application that had been made by the President of The Zimbabwe Miners Federation to The Minister of Mines and Mining Development Honourable Winston Chitando that miners get a reprieve and get a waiver as a critical sector to continue operations during the National 21 Days Lockdown in terms of Statutory Instrument 83 of 2020 Public Health (Covid-19 Prevention, Containment and Treatment) (National Lockdown) Order, 2020 has been successful.
ZMF argued that Mining is an essential service whose operations require continuous processes may operate
with the minimum staff required for the care and maintenances of its operations as stipulated in the SI.
The Minister responded by giving a press statement dated 29 March 2020 which said
“Mining operations which face implementation challenges are requested to apply for a partial exemption to the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development through the Chamber of Mines and Zimbabwe Miners Federation. The applications should indicate clearly the nature and modus of operation during the lockdown period and the measures which will be taken to safeguard employees and other stakeholders from the potential spread of the COVID-19 virus. Once the application is lodged with the Chamber of Mines or Zimbabwe Miners Federation, the mining company in question may be allowed to continue operating pending a response from Government. “
Any miner/company therefore willing to continue with operations during this 21 Days lockdown is expected to write a letter from your company addressed to ;
The Chief Executive Officer
Zimbabwe Miners Federation
No 80 Mutare Road
SWK House
Msasa
Harare
Email: [email protected]
The application should give un undertaking as to ;
1. What steps you will be taking to ensure that you comply or observe the fight against Coronavirus and the guidelines given by Government.
2. An overview of your operations
3. When you started operation
4. Deliveries to FPR last 12 months
5. Employment profile
6. Location
7. Nearest Police station
8. Distance of mine from houses
9. Use of public road to work
10. State whether underground or open cast mining operations
11. Attach ZMF Membership number
President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced that Zimbabwe will shut down for 21days from Monday the 30th of March 2020 as the country joins the rest of the world in trying to minimise transmission of the deadly Coronavirus that has claimed thousands of lives globally since its outbreak.
Covid-19/ Coronavirus, Transmission
For COVID-19, each person with the virus can go on to infect around 2.5 people. If each of those people go about their day as normal, and infect another 2.5 people, within a month, 406 people would be infected just from that first infection. Thousands of people with either no symptoms or very mild symptoms have been spreading the virus unaware that they were even infected. This means that before health experts were aware of the problem and started to recommend control measures, the virus had already spread to multiple countries.
President of The Zimbabwe Miners Federation Ms Henrietta Rushwaya applied to The Minister of Mines and Mining Development Honourable Winston Chitando that miners get a reprieve and get a waiver as a critical sector to continue operations during the National 21 Days Lockdown in terms of Statutory Instrument 83 of 2020 Public Health (Covid-19 Prevention, Containment and Treatment) (National Lockdown) Order, 2020.
The Applications was successful. Full article to follow shortly
DE BEERS has cancelled its third sight for the 2020 financial year owing to travel restrictions placed on buyers as a result of COVID-19.
Anglo American, which owns 85% of De Beers, said in an announcement that sightholders would be able to defer all of their third sight allocations to later in the year. It would “… continue to seek innovative ways to meet sightholders’ rough diamond supply needs in the coming weeks,” it said.
The travel restrictions are “… on the movement of people and products in Botswana, South Africa, and India, which prohibit customers from traveling and prevent the shipment of goods to customers’ international operations,” Anglo said.
Cancelling the third sight for this year is hardly a surprise given the way governments have ratcheted up their efforts to contain the spread of the virus in the last week, including a decision by the South African government to embark on a 21-day near total shutdown from March 27. De Beers had initially intended holding its sight however.
The COVID-19 outbreak has come at a terrible time for the diamond industry following poor trading conditions in 2019. De Beers made its smallest profit in more than a decade last year after a glut of rough and polished stones destroyed margins for the industry’s crucial middlemen who cut, polish and trade them, said Bloomberg News.
Early evidence that 2020 diamond sales were off to a poor start owing to travel interruptions was provided by GEM Diamonds which said on March 19 that it had replaced a tender for its large diamonds with a “flexible direct sale process” in mitigation of travel bans on buyers.
Last week Petra Diamonds brought forward the closure of its fifth sales tenders in South Africa and Antwerp three days earlier than the planned March 26. It also found “depressed and opportunistic” bidding for its goods, particularly in the larger size and higher quality, greater categories.
Gemfields said on March 24 that it could not provide a forecast for its financial performance in the current financial year as COVID-19 related travel restrictions prevented auctions of rubies and emeralds from taking place.
“Due to the current global travel restrictions the company cannot be certain when or if the ruby and emerald auctions scheduled for the coming months will take place,” it said in notes to a trading statement which showed a strong recovery for its 2019 financial year.
Gwanda gold miner Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc notes the announcement by His Excellency, President E.D. Mnangagwa on March 27, 2020, of a nationwide lockdown of Zimbabwe to restrict the spread of COVID-19 infections. In terms of these regulations all commercial activities other than “essential services” must suspend operations from March 30, 2020 for a period of 21 days.
Although the Zimbabwe authorities have confirmed that gold mining is not an essential service, Blanket is currently permitted to continue with its operations, as the authorities will grant exemptions for businesses which demonstrate they can operate in a manner that contributes to the management of the spread of COVID-19 infections. Blanket Mine has applied for such an exemption on the grounds that:
· Blanket and its employee village can be quarantined from the surrounding area; and
· Blanket will re-configure its operations to reduce the risk of infections being transmitted amongst its employees.
A key measure to reduce the risk of infections amongst Blanket’s workforce will be to increase the “social-distancing” of employees as they enter and leave the underground workings. This will reduce the number of employees who can work underground and will result in daily production running at approximately 70 – 80 percent of the target production rate.
Blanket is permitted to continue operations at the reduced level until its application for exemption is dealt with by the authorities.
As noted in the Company’s announcement on March 26, 2020, Caledonia enters this unprecedented situation with a strong balance sheet such that it can withstand an interruption to production of several months. Cash on hand at March 25, 2020, was $12.5 million following strong production in the first quarter of 2020 and the higher gold price in 2020.
South African gold refiner RAND REFINERY has stopped shipping gold to London because of a lack of commercial flights, adding to the disruption that’s upending the physical bullion market.
Rand Refinery, said it’s exploring back-up plans and alternative measures to be able to meet its delivery commitments to the London gold market.
“The supply from the established mines on the African continent to the refinery is currently disrupted,” said CEO Praveen Baijnath. “We are working hard with global logistics service providers to ensure our inbound and outbound commitments can be achieved.”
He didn’t specify how much gold could be affected. Still, it’s another example of how the supply chain — which runs from deep African mines to refineries and storage vaults — is being upended by the coronavirus. Earlier this week, refineries in Switzerland also announced they would temporarily close.
In one sign of how things have slowed down, shipping Russian gold overseas can now take about a week instead of a day, said Alexey Zaytsev, head of commodities & funding products at Otkritie bank.
The London Bullion Market Association, which oversees the spot market, said it’s confident there is more than sufficient global refining capacity and that refiners and other market participants are talking with logistics companies to ensure the physical movement of metal.
The Rand Refinery is running at reduced capacity during a national lockdown, even though the company was exempted from restrictions, Baijnath said.
He said it’s important to keep some processing going because selling gold is a key source of foreign exchange revenue. The facility refines gold for companies including AngloGold Ashanti and Gold Fields, which operate mines throughout Africa. The refinery, which has operated since 1920, sources gold from countries including Ghana, Tanzania and Mali.
“A complete shutdown of the refinery would have had a domino effect on the production on the continent,” he said. “Moreover, stockpiling of mined gold on the surface would have heightened security risk for any mine.”
Mining Weekly
Market-leading solutions research agency Fitch Solutions expects volatility to continue playing to the downside for metal prices in the coming weeks owing mainly to bearish investor sentiment on the back of the widespread Covid-19 pandemic.
The agency notes that metal prices started the year on a strong footing as the Phase One trade deal between the US and China was signed, before succumbing to the news of Covid-19 that infiltrated markets in mid-January.
While metal prices stabilised somewhat in February, Fitch Solutions laments that March saw another collapse, along with the unprecedented stress in financial markets, which resulted in metals broadly falling to below multi-year support levels and heading into lows not seen since the 2015/16 price rout.
Taking this into account, the research firm says it believes prices will remain subdued with further downside risks in the second quarter of this year as governments globally implement measures to contain the spread of Covid-19.
Despite China starting to get its economy back on course, the agency believes investor concerns about global demand outside of China will continue to put pressure on metal prices in the second quarter of the year.
Although lockdowns in China are being lifted, economic growth remains at a standstill outside of China.
In light of Covid-19, Fitch Solutions now sees a global economic recession in 2020, with global growth at 0.8% year-on-year with further downside risks for the year.
The agency has also revised its growth forecasts for major economies and now expects the US, German and Eurozone economies to contract this year.
However, the agency holds on to its forecast for metal prices to recover slightly in the second half of the year, albeit closer towards the fourth quarter, with two main reasons supporting its view.
First, there is an increasing number of miners outside of China announcing halts to production, suspending operations and withdrawing their supply guidance for 2020, which Fitch says “should lead to a tightening of the market later this year as operations halt”.
According to the agency, the market has not priced in this supply issue yet.
For instance, Peru recently implemented 15-day emergency isolation measures. Freeport McMoRan, the operator of the Cerro Verde mine, which produced 453 000 t of copper in 2019, placed the mine on care and maintenance on March 16 following the announcement.
In addition, Anglo American announced it would slow construction at the Quellaveco copper project for 15 days.
“We also think the market has priced in perhaps more than necessary the decline in demand that we will see this year,” Fitch comments.
Second, the agency’s country risk team believes government stimulus in China will be stronger this year than in 2018 or 2019, despite revising down the agency’s forecasts for China’s 2020 real gross domestic product (GDP) growth to 2.6% year-on-year compared to 4.2% year-on-year previously.
This, the agency says, will likely translate into recovering metals demand through increased construction activity or greater manufacturing of automotives or consumer electronics, depending on where stimulus is targeted, offsetting 2020 first-half demand losses and putting a floor under prices by the second half of the year.
Meanwhile, iron-ore and steel remain resilient, and are outperforming other metals, Fitch says.
“While there are no winners during a pandemic, ferrous metal prices have remained relatively more resilient than non-ferrous counterparts since news of Covid-19 emerged in January, in part due to supply issues and partly due to investor optimism on stronger Chinese demand from infrastructure projects,” the agency notes.
Fitch expects this trend to continue this year, with iron-ore and steel prices hovering around $83/t and $541/t, respectively, at the time of writing, displaying weakness but no collapse since averaging $85/t and $565/t, respectively, in December 2019.
As of March 20, iron-ore inventories in China are down to 110.3-million tonnes, compared with 116.6-million tonnes on January 3.
After Vale cut its previous iron-ore production guidance for the first quarter of the year, seasonal wet weather in Australia has buoyed prices.
The Covid-19 situation and its impact on air travel also puts iron-ore at the greatest supply risk, as about 60% of the world’s seaborne iron-ore is produced in the Pilbara, a remote part of Western Australia that is a two-hour flight for workers from the state capital of Perth.
“We believe that operations at the greatest risk of disruption are likely those that have a higher dependency on a mobile (fly-in, fly-out) workforce or use local labour but are significantly reliant on fly-in, fly-out employees or contractors for higher skilled roles,” Fitch notes.
With regard to steel, Chinese steel mills are only operating at about 50% or less of total capacity currently, with steel product making likely to see prolonged disruption as the production of rebar used in construction makes better sense.
The spread between Chinese domestic rebar and hot rolled sheet has risen to $40/t as of March 25 compared to just $14/t on January 2.
Additionally, Fitch comments that metals with weaker fundamentals are expected to see a slower price recovery, particularly as non-ferrous metals are expected to see a greater price weakness in the coming months, compared to ferrous metals, especially non-ferrous metals with weaker fundamentals.
Since news of Covid-19 broke in January, the prices of copper, tin, zinc and nickel have fallen by 22.2%, 22.0%, 21.4% and 21.1%, respectively. Lead and aluminium have suffered declines of 17.4% and 14.2%, respectively.
And, despite stronger fundamentals, copper has suffered the most owing to its status as a barometer for global economic health.
However, since the announcement of stimulus measures, especially in the US, copper prices have stabilised somewhat in the last two days.
Despite aluminium having suffered less than copper, Fitch believes copper has a greater chance of seeing a revival in the second half of the year, compared with that of aluminium, considering that the latter will register historically weak global demand this year even without factoring in the impact of Covid-19 with oversupply in the market widening.
Like copper, fundamentals for nickel remain tight, especially as Indonesia has banned exports since the start of the year, while demand from the Chinese stainless-steel industry will pick up in the second half of 2020.
Nickel stocks at global warehouses, meanwhile, remain low compared to historical standards, and Fitch currently expects the global nickel market to remain in a deficit in 2020.
Fitch further laments that the downside risks to its current price forecasts are slated to the downside, with the main risk being the global demand for metals declining to such an extent, owing to major economies contracting, that gains in Chinese demand fail to offset global losses.
“There is also the risk that the level of stimulus from China that we currently expect does not translate to actual metal demand, which would see prices heading into further bearish territory, especially iron-ore and steel, which have remained resilient compared to other metals due to investor expectations of a strong China rebound and their heavyweight towards China.”
Nonetheless, Fitch’s price forecasts for metals still show that its 2020 forecasts are broadly lower than 2019 averages but slightly bullish from spot levels.
Mining Weekly
President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced that Zimbabwe will shut down for 21days from Monday the 30th of March 2020 as the country joins the rest of the world in trying to minimise transmission of the deadly Coronavirus that has claimed thousands of lives globally since its outbreak.
The President Announced the following:-
“Starting Monday March 30, 2020, and subject to further review, Zimbabwe will be under a total lockdown for a period of 21 days,” Mnangagwa said.
“This means all our citizens are required to stay at home except, of course, in respect of essential movements relating to seeking health services, to purchase and procure food and medicines and other critical services supplies.”
Covid-19 aka Coronavirus, Transmission
For COVID-19, each person with the virus can go on to infect around 2.5 people. If each of those people go about their day as normal, and infect another 2.5 people, within a month, 406 people would be infected just from that first infection.
Thousands of people with either no symptoms or very mild symptoms have been spreading the virus unaware that they were even infected. This means that before health experts were aware of the problem and started to recommend control measures, the virus had already spread to multiple countries.
Social Lock-down (In this case shutdown)
In the absence of treatment or a vaccine, ceasing most human contact is the only way to stop the spread of the virus. Essentially, the less contact people have with each other, the less the virus can spread. Given the rapid spread of the virus, social lockdown is urgent to bring overall transmission down, and see whether testing followed by isolation could be effective – this is all in an attempt to ‘flatten the curve’ or reduce infections and spread cases out over a longer time frame to avoid overwhelming health systems.
Since the announcement by Mnangagwa messages started flooding our inbox with miners asking about the implications on mining the shutdown will have.
Due to Coronavirus outbreak countries globally have banned incoming and outgoing flights to and from almost all countries Zimbabwe included. This has disrupted the international shipping of minerals. South Africa’s Rand Refinery halted shipping gold to London because of a lack of commercial flights said it is exploring back-up plans and alternative measures to be able to meet its delivery commitments to the London gold market. The refinery, which has operated since 1920, sources gold from countries including Ghana, Tanzania, and Mali.
Gold buyers will not be able to move around buying therefore if ASM miners decide to stay at their mines and continue with operations no one will come to buy. This will force operating gold miners to stock their gold, and stockpiling of mined gold is increased security risk for any mine.
The price of any mineral is moved by a combination of supply, demand, and investor behavior. Many mining giants have cut down, halted or are in the process of halting operations. Copper prices hit their lowest level since January 2016, with three-month copper futures on the London Metal Exchange (LME) touching $4,371 per metric ton. That’s down from a high of around over $6,340 in mid-January. On the 19th by 6.30 a.m. London time, copper prices were trading around $4,548. This past week, gold fell from $1,590 to $1,455 before recovering around $1,500. The fall is approximately 8.4 in percentage terms, which is very high compared to average weekly movements.
Halting operations at mine shafts with water issues will cause flooding and risks shaft collapse. Operating mines continuously pump out the water to alleviate this problem. Halting operations will intricate the resumption of operations. South African based SP Angel mining analyst Johan Meyer referring to that country’s lockdown said “The lockdown could result in some major capital expenditure to reopen certain deep-level shafts,” the same goes for our own mines both small and large scale.
As the shutdown begins on essential services as mentioned by the government to be Police, Army, Hospital staff, selected grocery shops for the rest this means business is at a standstill. Source of income will no doubt for the next 21 days will be zero to most. The national purse is also on the firing line.
A local politician said, “While the lockdown appears to be noble, in our Zimbabwean context, it becomes a heavy blow to the same human life that ought to be saved if no further measures to cushion livelihoods are put in place,”.
No doubt millions will suffer but from the look of things, the need to combat the disease seems to outweigh the need to keep hustling.
Zimbabwe has many exciting mining deals this year and one highly anticipated is the Chiadzwa deal with AIM-listed Vast Resources. Vast is currently working on the JV agreement between its majority-owned Katanga Mining and Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) regarding the Chiadzwa Community Diamond Project. It was revealed that Vast had “received official communication from the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development to the effect that all internal processes leading to the conclusion of the Joint Venture are expected to be finalised in March 2020.
However days back the President stated all government departments and ministries will only have a third of their staff at work after the confirmed cases of Covid-19. The virus claimed the life of prominent journalist Zororo Makamba who days before his death had visited government offices. Some Government officials including the Presidental Spokesperson Mr George Charamba had to be moved to self-quarantine and the government is currently at full throttle trying to minimise Covid-19 impact. We have seen government suspending several high-level events and meetings and it is highly probable several projects and deals will be delayed due to the world-wide pandemic of Covid-19 that has 7 confirmed cases locally.
It is of extreme importance for miners to understand the pandemic that is the Covid-19 virus aka Coronavirus and its severe implications should stern measures be not taken to stop its spread. Coronavirus is highly contagious and the best way to stop it is to minimise contact with the infected and the best way to ascertain that is a complete lockdown since some carriers do not even show symptoms.
It is worrying that some people are still taking the threat of Coronavirus lightly undermining social distancing in the name of earning a living. Although it is of great concern that incomes will be lost for the duration of the shutdown prevention may be the better option than contracting a disease that will likely spread like a wildfire and has the potential of killing many who contract it.
There are many implications to the shutdown but as Mining Zimbabwe we encourage everyone to comply with the government directive and stay at home. We will continue with our mandate of keeping miners updated with current affairs. This is also the time for us to conversate about pressing issues in the mining industry through various platforms.
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