Australian miner Riversdale Mining Limited has announced that the President of the Republic of Mozambique, Armando Emilio Guebuza, attended a formal groundbreaking ceremony at the
Benga coal project, a joint venture between Riversdale (65 percent) and Indian steel giant Tata Steel (35 percent), in Tete, Mozambique.
Riversdale Mining executive chairman Michael O'Keeffe said at the ceremony that the mine will create jobs directly and indirectly for up to 4,500 people around Tete over the next five years.
The company has 21 exploration licenses in the country, covering over 250,000 hectares in Mozambique.
The Benga license, received from the government of Mozambique in April, 2009, involves the commitment of US$270 million (excluding working capital) to undertake the initial Stage 1 development of the project, which entails initial production of 5.3 million mt per year to produce approximately 1.7 million mt of high quality hard coking coal and 300,000 mt of export thermal coal per year.
The company believes the scale of the resources at Benga allows for cost-effective open cut mining, with the potential to produce 20 million mt of coal per year for a period of more than 25 years.
The company also aims to develop the Nacala and Sena railway lines, and around the Zambezi River when barging is confirmed by Riversdale Mining as a viable and sustainable option to transport coal.