Fadzai Fungura

Advanced Minerals Engineering

Ferrochrome assignment
The Future of ferrochrome production in Zimbabwe.
Chromite ores is smelted to produce ferrochrome which is widely used as an alloying element in
cast irons and steel. The smelting process requires more energy and is labor intensive .They are
four ferrochrome smelters in Zimbabwe mainly ZIMASCO in Kwekwe, ZimAlloys in Gweru,
Oliken in Kwekwe and Maranatha in Kadoma. ZimAlloys and ZIMASCO have vast ferrochrome
deposits along the Great Dyke which are found in both stratiform and podiform form. Although
they are vast deposits of chromite ores, contribution towards global market is at least 12%.
Zimbabwe contribution of ferrochrome on global market is due to high production costs,
reduction in capital invest and depletion of chromite deposits. Stratiform deposits are found far
beneath ground surface, hence underground mining is used to extract chromite ores, while
podiform deposits are found near the earth surface. Podiform chromite ores reserves are
suspected to be have depleted because they required lless capital to extract then. Only stratiform
deposits are left and they require high capital investments and advanced machinery to exploit
them.

easily exploited, they are expected to run out but 2015 (B.Chitambira et al, 2010). Underground
deposits require high capital investments and advanced machinery to exploit them.
Challenges of ferrochrome ar

Current advances world-wide are more focused on utilizing the fines and concentrates generated during
the handling of the friable ores. The recovery of chromium is reduced by at least 8% if fines are used in
the smelting operation. When the low cost fines are agglomerated to even-sized, hard and porous feed
material in pelletising and sintering plants, their behavior in the furnace is even better than that of hard
lumpy and the consumption of electric energy in smelting is reduced considerably
number of claims along the Great Dyke, the largest source of metallurgical grade chromite ore in the
world. Zimbabwe is the only country that has both stratiform and podiform types of chrome ores that are
exploitable for ferrochrome production. South African reserves mainly occur as stratiform deposits.
However, the podiform ores are quickly running out, and attention has turned to utilization of the friable
stratiform ores, which tend to be more friable and thus require pre-treatment prior to smelting in
conventional submerged electric arc furnaces.
Although Zimbabwe has seen a significant number of new investment in chrome ore mining, there has
been relatively limited investment into the ferrochrome smelting sector

The challenges of current ferrochrome production are reduction of investment and operating costs
(CAPEX & OPEX), minimizing waste and improvement of the SHE performance of the processes. The
long-term global trend of ferroalloy prices, in general, is downwards, as a result putting a lot of pressure
on producers to reduce overall production costs in order to maintain viability of the industry

producing three ferrochrome

products namely High Carbon Ferrochrome (HCFeCr), Ferrosilicon Chrome (FeSiCr) and Low Carbon
Ferrochrome (LCFeCr).

e said despite the country being one of the world’s largest holder o f ferro chrome
deposits, the country was still to fully exploit the resource to the maximum advantage.
Most of the smelting technology in the country is old and the industry recognises the
need to invest in new technology, especially technology that can process fines.
nd Zimbabwe, whose exploitation of the resource is currently just above 5 percent
attributable to medium and small-scale miners using open cast and pit mining, could
tap into its vast potential.

Inadequate forex allocations impacting negative on investsiment in productive capex

NRZ FAILING TO TRANSPORT TO TRNSPORT EXPORT CARGO
Where container shipping lines are used for moving export cargo ,freight charges
billed in forex are not being allocated to such companies which also has to pay for
services in forexalong the export chain
Volatility in ferrochrome prices
Some of the producers have plans to install fines agglomeration technology so that
they can take advantage of the chromite fines resource which account for
approximately over 40 percent of the country’s chromite ore
New technology will also improve smelting efficiencies and thereby improve viability
of the industry. Capital availability and cost thereof will be critical factors for the
Industry in its quest to invest in new technologies. (B.Manhando, 2018)
Smelting processes requires high energy consumpution and higher production ncosts