Introduction
Bulawayo’s hinterlands are enriched with vast natural resources which include gold, lithium & natural gas deposits, forestry among others. In the past Mining sector has played an integral part in the City’s Economic Development as it has led to the growth of the City’s heavy Industries. There are various investment opportunities in mining which includes exploration, consultancy services and commercial mineral processing. Besides the opportunities in support of mining activities around Bulawayo, the Metro also has opportunities in the mining of gold and other minerals, quarrying for granite for construction as well as mining for raw materials for cement manufacturing. All these minerals require investment for expansion and modernization, as well as for new ventures.
Bulawayo is a house to many mining companies and various minerals such as gold, coal, tin, lithium, tantalite, granite etc. have been identified in its extended regions. This perfectly positions Bulawayo as a center for numerous investment opportunities through economic linkages to the mining sector. Mining sector in Bulawayo comprises of both the Artisanal Small-scale Miners (ASM) and Large Scale Miners (LSM). However, their requirements in terms of input are similar and only differ in terms of volume.
Exploration & Consultancy services
According to the Ministry of Mines report, Zimbabwe lags behind in exploration as the country has not invested in exploration in the last 20 years. This therefore means that the increase in Artisanal and Small Scale Mining operations and Large Scale Mining around Bulawayo breeds an increase in demand for exploration services, which leads us to an investment opportunity. Currently most ASMs are failing to produce bankable reports of their mines to be able to access bank loans whereas LSMs have huge scales of claims that remain underexplored. Therefore, a well-equipped exploration company can be a very good investment opportunity given the current situation.
With all the technical understanding of how a mine runs through its different value chains one might consider offering consultancy services. Both LSMs and ASMs need consultancy services. Production in most ASMs around Bulawayo has been low mainly due to lack of information amongst miners. Miners are in need of consultancy services that range from geological, mining, metallurgical and Surveys.
Commercial Mineral Processing Plants
Most ASMs around Bulawayo do not have the capacity to set and run their own mineral processing plants. Therefore, for Mineral Beneficiation they send their ore to the nearest commercial plants they find. The Plants are basically a set up that run from particle size reduction in stamp mills up to fine gold recovery from concentrators and amalgamation. Commercial plant owners then benefit from treatment of sands in Cyanide tanks plus off-course payments from services. One might arguably conclude that plant owners benefit more since the mineralization of most of the gold ore around Bulawayo report up to 36% fine gold, which means the rest of the percentage depending on recovery is left for the plant owner to take as profit. On the other side most of Commercial plants are registered gold buyer agents under Fidelity Printers the sole trader of gold in Zimbabwe. This is an opportunity that can also be taken up by non-plant owners, by virtue of Fidelity Printers being far from miners, ASMs would obviously enjoy working with someone who comes right on their door step to buy gold. With the continuous spike in gold prices, this might be really a good investment opportunity to consider.
Also, an investor who is interested in jewelry production can target Bulawayo as his/her center mainly because of many gold miners who are readily available as gold suppliers. The margin in price between gold and processed gold jewelry is good enough to consider as worthwhile profit. It cannot be overemphasized that the opportunities in manufacturing abound. There is an urgent need to revive struggling enterprises, grow those operating on a fraction of their previous capacities, as well as foster the opening of new ones. The business case for this bold move is that the country needs to start increasing its manufacturing capacity in order to reduce the import bill.
