Mabiza Resources appoints Matthew Banda as GM

Mabiza Resources Limited(MRL) which operates Munali Nickel Mine has appointed Mr. Matthew Banda as General Manager of the company. This comes after Consolidated Nickel Mines Plc (CNM) the holding company partnered with Jinchuan to restart mining operations at the nickel mine, located 75 km south of Lusaka in Mazabuka, Southern Province. Matthew was trained in Mineral Sciences (Mining) at the University of Zambia and has attained Masters in Business Administration and Masters of Science in Strategic planning from Herriot-Watt University in the UK. He is the vice president for the Zambia Chamber of Mines and previously worked at Albidon Zambia Limited the previous owners of the mine

 A lease and royalty agreement has been signed giving CNM full operational control of the Munali mine and the adjacent exploration area for a 10 year period with the option to extend by another 10 years at CNM’s discretion.

Around $200m has already been spent by the previous owners in developing the mine, installing a concentrator of outstanding quality, and bringing the mine into production. However, for a number of reasons, such as the use of the wrong geological model and hence the wrong mining method being employed, this lead to uneconomic operations when the nickel price fell, and the placing of the mine on care and maintenance.

Working with the mine’s management team, CNM has spent the past two years conducting extensive evaluation and study work at Munali to put together a sustainable restart plan. During this time, a new geological model has been developed, a new JORC resource has been defined and a new mining method has been planned to extract the nickel from the ore body more efficiently and economically.

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