BRAVURA Zimbabwe has adopted a vertically integrated approach, handling all aspects of its business in-house to minimise dependence on external partners to enhance operational resilience.
The company runs three projects in Zimbabwe—Bravura Platinum, Bravura Lithium and Bravura Iron. The projects are at different levels of completion, with the lithium project in Kamativi being expected to go live first.
“As a business, we have a strategy to manage our costs and one of the strategies that we have is that we are vertically integrated,” Bravura Zimbabwe general manager Gbenga Ojo told journalists on Tuesday in Harare during a media briefing.
“For us, being vertically integrated, we have been able to mitigate against things like contractors and their subcontractors performance risk. A good example is during the COVID-19 period, most companies went into a crisis because they had arrangements with contractors in terms of their projects.
“But in our own case, all processes are in-house, and so we do not find ourselves in any contractual challenge. The skills, the engineers are in-house, the mining engineers are in-house, the rock engineers are in-house, and the geophysicists are in-house. So, we don’t have any plan to do contract mining.”
Ojo said the strategy helps them remain resilient even amid global softening prices.
“Let us assume that we stay in the current situation of softening of prices given our strategy, we will still remain a profitable organisation,” he said.
“That can be proven by the fact that while everybody is retrenching, we have not retrenched anybody yet. And we don’t have to retrench anybody because we are in a safe way to operate.”
Bravura Zimbabwe revealed that it had made significant progress on its projects.
For instance, the company has completed exploration work for its platinum project in Selous and is now conducting feasibility studies before actual mining and processing plant construction begins. It has purchased yellow machines which are ready to be shipped into Zimbabwe.
At the Kamativi project, plant and equipment are ready to be commissioned by the supplier, while the generator to power the plant and provide auxiliary power for non-stop production has been purchased and is in country.
Drilling and exploration at its iron project in Manhize are underway at an advanced stage, with analysis of the core ongoing. The company also plans to construct a steel plant.
The company was awarded a 3 000 ha concession in Selous, about 50 miles south of Harare, in 2019. It also has a 60%:40% joint venture with the government through a special purpose vehicle in Kamativi.
Bravura Zimbabwe is a subsidiary of Bravura Holdings Ltd, a company owned by Nigerian billionaire Benedict Peters. Peters also owns Aiteo Eastern E&P Co, Nigeria’s biggest domestic oil producer, but has little experience in mining. – (Newsday)
