TUESDAY, 4.00PM
GENCOR’s plans to build a new aluminium smelter in the Mozambican capital Moputo are to go ahead, the company announced on Tuesday.
The R5-billion project known as Mozal, which aims to produce 245 000 tons of aluminium a year, will be the largest single private-sector investment in Mozambique, Gencor claimed. The South African conglomerate will hold 50% of the equity with the Industrial Development Corporation, while the remainder will go to international financiers of the project.
“We hope that the Mozal project will serve as the crucial catalyst to transform the Mozambican economy and with it, the lives of thousands of Southern Africans,” said Gencor’s chairman, Brian Gilbertson.
Gencor is confident of the viability of the Mozambican smelter, which will use bauxite from within the country and be powered by electricity from a new dam soon to be constructed at a site some 70km south of the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi river. The new hydro-electric dam, Mepanda Uncua, is a joint project between South African power utility company Eskom and the Mozambican power supply authority, EDM.