Editor’s Note
This article outlines a major $70.3 million investment by the Montepuez Ruby Mining company (MRM) to triple its processing capacity in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province. The venture is a partnership between UK-based Gemfields (75%) and Mozambican company Mwiriti Limitada (25%).
Maputo, 18 Jun (AIM) – The Montepuez Ruby Mining company (MRM), which operates in the Namanhumbir administrative post, Montepuez district, in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, plans to triple its processing activities in an investment of 70.3 million US dollars.
MRM is 75 per cent owned by the UK-based company Gemfields and 25 per cent by its Mozambican partner, Mwiriti Limitada.
According to a Gemfields source, interviewed by the Portuguese News Agency Lusa, processing may reach 600 tonnes per hour as a result of the construction of the second ruby processing unit, known as PP2.
The construction project may be concluded by the end of the first half of this year.
The second unit also leaves open the possibility of expansion “to other mining areas” within the MRM concession, which currently employs 1,300 workers, 94 per cent of whom are Mozambican.
According to the company, the investment amounts to 70 million dollars, excluding taxes and fees, of which 60 million dollars has already been invested, with plans to expand the mining portfolio by 2026.
When fully operational, the second processing plant “is expected to triple the processing rate and therefore significantly increase ruby production and revenue” from the Mozambican mine, at a time when the coloured gemstone market is expected to “recover and continue its upward trajectory in the medium–long term”.
Since Gemfields acquired 75% of MRM in February 2012, with ruby auctions starting two years later, the mine has accumulated revenue in excess of 1.172 billion dollars, paying 285.5 million to the Mozambican state.