EMELIA SITHOLE AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maputo | Friday
MAPUTO Mining and metals group Billiton plc says it needs to spend an extra $1.5bn to $2bn to expand its Hillside aluminium plant in South Africa and the Mozal aluminium smelter in Mozambique.
”The investment needed will be large … Billiton is now engaged in feasibility studies that will determine whether and when we should go ahead with those projects,” Billiton Chairman Brian Gilbertson said at the official inauguration of Mozambique Aluminium (Mozal).
A decision on the expansions could take ”a year or so”, he said.
If Billiton and its investment partners went ahead with the expansions aluminium production from southern Africa would account for about 7% of Western world aluminium, he said.
Mozal is the region’s second-largest aluminium smelter after South Africa’s Hillside. When Mozal reaches its full capacity of 250 000 tonnes of metal a year southern Africa will account for 4% of world output, with combined revenue of $1.3bn a year.
Billiton owns a majority 47% stake in Mozal, Mozambique’s biggest industrial project, which represents the country’s single largest foreign investment since independence from Portugal in 1975.
The refinery is expected to add 7% to the country’s gross domestic product. The other shareholders are Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp with 25%, South Africa’s Industrial Development Corp (IDC) with 24% and the Mozambican government with 4%.
Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano said at the opening ceremony his country would continue focusing on maintaining its political and economic stability to lure investors.
”Mozal is not a solution to all our economic and social problems…but it’s a tool which we should be able to use to stimulate developments of small and medium-scale initiatives by Mozambicans,” he said.
Mozambique was one of the fastest growing economies in Africa before floods at the beginning of the year swept away infrastructure, left hundreds of people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands more.
Chissano said Mozal would be central to the creation of an industrial development zone near Maputo.
Officials say it is on track to reach full operational capacity by first quarter 2001. – Reuters