News | Stamigold to generate 350bn/- in two years

MWANZA: STATE owned gold mining company, Stamigold, is set to mine record 120,000 ounces of gold worth over 350bn/- in the next two years.

All is set for the job expected to start next month, with the firm’s General Manager, Mr Denis Sebugwao, saying explorations have already indicated the possibility of attaining the historical reserves.

According to Mr Sebugwao, the explorations undertaken in the Western Zone of the mine site have shown deposits amounting to 26,000 ounces and that of the Eastern zone has over 85000 ounces.

“We are glad to announce this historical milestone achieved by our public owned mining firm, with the two areas showing great potential in gold deposits never achieved before and which will be the biggest since the mining commenced in 2014,” he said.

He said the discovery of gold in the areas will require heavy investment of nearly 44 million US dollars (about 90bn/-) with strategies already in place to secure the funds from different sources.

Giving a brief statistics, Mr Sebugwao said up to March this year, the Company had produced over 51,000 ounces and at least 5,000 ounces of different concentrates all worth 127bn/-.

Due to the recorded income, the company has paid different government dues of about 35bn/-, with 515m/- committed to Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) activities in the villages surrounding the mine.

Mr Sebugwao maintained that a series of explorations will be undertaken in future, with one continuing on T 7 area and other nine sites with prospects of attaining over 70,000 ounces that will help to increase the life span of the mine for another two years.

Other master plans in the pipeline include the expansion of the processing plant to at least double the capacity, the investment likely to cost over 15 million US dollars.

“Reduction of production costs is one of our major targets and we plan to purchase the brand new mining machines worth over 12 million dollars, with soft loan from Exim Bank of China,” he said, hinting that the loan will be repaid in five years at a two per cent interest rate.

The purchase of own machines will relieve the company of the 10 million dollars it spends annually on renting equipment from private dealers.

Another achievement, according to Mr Sebugwao, is the agreement on power connection from the national grid before the end of next year if all goes well, again relieving the company of millions of money it pays for running the power generators.

He however pleaded for continued government support for the company to effectively undertake its operations and appreciated the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, which is about to allocate 10bn/- to fund different expenses.