Iron ore and titanium deposits with estimated reserves of 5 million tons have been found and inventoried during prospecting activities carried out by the Mozambican Ministry for Mining Resources in Tete province.
The Mining Resources Minister at the opening of the 27th Coordinating Council held from 3 to 6 August in the town of Cateme, in the Moatize district of Tete province, Minister Esperança Bias said that the pre feasibility study for construction of an iron foundry in the Tenge area, some 50km from the city of Tete, was about to be concluded.
The Natural Resources Minister gave assurances that by the end of this year the technical and economic feasibility studies would be concluded for exploration of phosphates in Evate, in the Monapo district of Nampula province, and their use at a chemical complex for fertilizer production, which may be built in Nacala using an investment of around USD 3 billion.
Bias said that since 2007 four mining concessions had been granted for coal mining in Tete province, and that the companies operating in Moatize had started production and export of coal in the second half of 2011. By the end of the first quarter of 2012 production totaled over 2 million tns.
The Mining Resources Minister said: “This amount is more than three times the biggest ever annual production in Mozambique, in the time of the now extinct Companhia Carbonífera de Moçambique and state company Empresa Nacional de Carvão de Moçambique (Carbomoc).”