Although Vale Mozambique, a subsidiary of the Brazilian mining giant, increased its 2016 output from its mine in Mozambique’s Tete province by 10.7% to 5.5 million tonnes of coal, that was still only just over half the 10 million-tonne target it announced in 2015.
The company attributed its increase in production to the improvement recorded at the Moatize I project and the beginning of a new project called Moatize II.
Just one of the production challenges in the fourth quarter of 2016 was “restrictions in the supply of explosives used in the dismantling of the mine” said a Vale report. A shortage that cost the mine 1.6 million tonnes of output - down by 9.7% year-on-year.
