CHINESE firm Sinosteel Corp says it has ramped up production at its Zimbabwe subsidiary ZIMASCO to full capacity and is now working on expanding annualized output by a about 30 percent.
ZIMASCO which has been renamed Sinosteel Zimbabwe Chrome is the largest joint venture between China and Zimbabwe and company officials say the firm is now operating smoothly since production resumed last year.
“We are planning to expand the ferrochrome capacity there by 50 000-60000 tons, from the current 200 000 tons a year,” Zhang Suwei, managing director at Sinosteel South Africa (Pty) Ltd was been quoted as saying in Hong Kong.
He said all the five blast furnaces at the company’s smelting plant were now running at full capacity.
Sinosteel won government approval to buy majority interest in Zimasco for a reported US$200 million in 2007. The company, which has operations in the Midlands town of Kwekwe and Shurugwi, is the country’s largest ferrochrome producer with markets in the United States, the EU, Japan and China.
Following the acquisition, ZIMASCO posted a good performance during its first year of under Sinosteel but soon took a knock from the global economic slump in 2008 as well as the adverse local operating environment.
Subsequent slumps in chrome prices, in addition to shortages of electricity and raw materials, finally forced the company to shut down its operations at the end of improvement in the global economic situation and the successful establishment of a coalition government in Zimbabwe.
Sinosteel acquisition of ZIMASCO was in line with the company expansion into production of raw materials such as ferroalloys used in steelmaking, to meet demand in the world`s biggest producer and consumer of steel.
Zimbabwe has the world`s largest reserves of chrome after South Africa.