Kenyan mining company invests in Mozambique

It is not only the Brazilians, Indians and Chinese who are interested in mining coal in the Moatize and Mucanha-Vuzi coal basins in the Tete province of Mozambique. Sol Mineração Mozambique, a subsidiary of Kenya’s Sunflag group, is set to invest US $222 million in the Tete province. Founded in the 1930s as an East African garment and textile company, Sunflag has since expanded globally into steel, textiles, power generation and health care. It has steel plants in India and Nigeria. “The Feasibility studies revealed the presence of 115.46mt of coal, of which only 44.9 mt can be commercialised, comprising 17.3 mt of coking coal and 27.6 mt of steam coal,” Sol Mineração Mozambique director Ravibhusan Bhardwej said in a statement. Sunflag Iron And Steel, which signed a 25-year concession agreement for the mining of the coal in Mozambique, has its headquarters in India. The company expects to sell 0.8 mt of coking coal and 1.2 mt of thermal coal a year. The Tete province is considered as the world’s largest undiscovered coking coal province and has the potential to supply around 25% of the world’s coking coal by the year 2025 – providing the logistics links are in place to move the commodity.