President calls for acceleration of Mapinga Mines to Energy Park
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has called for the completion of the Mapinga Mines to Energy Industrial Park project.
The Mapinga Mines to Energy Park aims at promoting value addition and beneficiation of the country’s minerals mainly battery minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel and base minerals such as chrome among others.
The project, which is the first of its kind in Zimbabwe, would be established on a 5 000-hectare piece of land in Mapinga, along the Harare – Chinhoyi Road and will boost the economy through beneficiation of minerals and support the clean energy drive.
The mines-to-energy project will include the construction of two 300MW power stations, a coking plant, a lithium salt plant, a graphite processing plant, a nickel-chromium alloy smelter as well as a nickel sulphate plant.
Speaking at the official commissioning of the Bikita Minerals Spodumene and Petalite processing plant in Bikita on Wednesday President Mnangagwa called on lithium players to speed the production of batteries and other clean energy-related products.
In that regard, the President said work to complete the Mapinga Mines to Energy Industrial Park should be accelerated.
“In spite of the commendable success milestones we are celebrating, players in the lithium- sub-sector must remain on the course to produce batteries and other clean energy-related products. The completion of the Mapinga Mines to Energy Industrial Park should be expedited,” President Mnangagwa said.
Deputy Minister of Mines and Mining Development Dr Polite Kambamura said the project will ensure value addition and beneficiation for the country’s minerals that will ensure maximum returns for the country.
”This project, besides being the biggest in Africa, will ensure that we grow our mining industry’s profit output as we aim to reach and surpass our US$12 billion mining industry by the end of the year and we can achieve this through value addition,” he said
The Government and two Chinese investors – Eagle Canyon International Group Limited and Pacific Goal Investment in September last year signed a Memorandum of Understanding that immediately paved the way for the construction of the US$13 billion mines to energy industrial park in Mapinga, Mashonaland West Province.
Officiating at the signing ceremony at State House in Harare, President Mnangagwa said the agreement was in keeping with the Second Republic’s development philosophy of leaving no one and no place behind and would spur the realisation of Vision 2030 of an upper middle-income society.