Date | Aug 19, 2016:

GOVERNMENT has cleared suspicion that Hwange Colliery Company may have acquired second-hand mining equipment following a series of faults that affected its performance, but insisted that the new machinery should perform. HCCL acquired the equipment from state- owned Indian mining equipment manufacturer, Bharat Earth Moving Equipment Limited, but encountered recurrent problems mostly on the excavators, resulting in missed production targets.Mines and Mining Development Deputy Minister Fred Moyo said Government vetted the equipment to verify concerns that HCCL may have bought used equipment, which would explain the performance related problems on some of the equipment.

The assessment revealed that the equipment was indeed new and was acquired from India’s biggest state-owned manufacturer of mining equipment, BEML, using a loan the coal miner secured from the Indian Export and Import Bank.

“Our focus was to say ‘where is the problem, why is the equipment not performing, if indeed it was the right equipment and whether the right people had been deployed.

“The main concern was ‘did we buy old equipment’, we have cleared that; the equipment was indeed new,” he said.

The faulty excavators were part of a $32 million equipment supply deal, but only half the value had been delivered.

The deputy minister added that Government wanted to find out if the equipment was acquired at the right price and whether HCCL personnel had been properly trained to operate the equipment; to understand the origin of the problems.

However, he said while Government is satisfied that the equipment was acquired from a reputable mining equipment manufacturing company, state-owned and the largest in India, HCCL management and the board have the responsibility to make sure that the equipment performs well.

“We want the equipment to perform, but of course that is an operational issue and responsibility of board and management,” the Mines and Mining Development Deputy Minister said.

HCCL received the equipment in July last year, hoping the machinery would help increase production to 500 000 tonnes a month from 200 000t, but the target could not be achieved, as the machinery got bogged down by technical faults.

Following the unending technical faults since last year, HCCL tried to rectify the problems, including fitting in new spares and engaging experts from the supplier, but to no avail.

HCCL chief executive Thomas Makore said in July this year that the coal mining company had demanded that the $2 million worth of faulty equipment be replaced or that BEML reimburse the equivalent amount paid for the equipment.

Giving a production update in July, Mr Makore said that coal production had hovered around 30 percent to 40 percent of budgeted production, due to the high frequency of the break downs of the equipment from BEML.

The country’s biggest coal miner, targeted to increase coal output to 350 000t by September this year.

Production has also been hampered by lack of adequate working capital and the group is in the process of pursuing a syndicated loan with the support of power utility, Zesa Holdings.

(Source: http://www.herald.co.zw/)