Zimbabwean steel giant in limbo

Production at the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (Ziscosteel), the largest steel maker in the country, has come to a halt due to coal shortages and breakdown of key equipment.

There were fears that Ziscosteel could completely shut down any time if no urgent measures were taken, preliminary findings by the Parliamentary Committee Portfolio on Industry and International Trade have revealed.

The committee noted on Friday that coal deliveries from Hwange Colliery Company Limited were too low to fire blast furnace number four, the only functional furnace out of the existing four.

Coal deliveries to Ziscosteel had only been enough to warm up machinery and protect it from destruction, committee chairman Enock Porusingazi said.

"There is a serious crisis at the company," he said, serious measures had to be put in place to avert the looming closure.

At the moment there was no production taking place, he added, Ziscosteel requires close to 300,000 tons of coal per month but was getting just a small fraction of its monthly requirements.

"Indications are that if Ziscosteel fails to secure enough coal supplies, the company could close operations by end of this week, a situation which would negatively affect the downstream industries," he said.

However, Porusingazi absolved Ziscosteel of any wrongdoing on the low coal supplies which he blamed on Hwange for failing to fulfill standing orders and on shortage of wagons at National Railways of Zimbabwe to ferry coal to the steelmaker.

Source: Xinhua