Vedanta Limited has inaugurated the Phase II expansion at its Gamsberg zinc mine in South Africa’s Northern Cape, an investment of nearly 600 million dollars that doubles the operation’s annual production capacity to 500,000 tonnes of metal in concentrate. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Vedanta director Priya Agarwal-Hebbar inaugurated the expanded operation, which the company described as one of the largest mining investments in South Africa this decade.
Gamsberg is the flagship mine of Vedanta Zinc International and hosts one of the world’s larger zinc deposits. The expansion forms part of a 21 billion rand commitment, about 1.5 billion dollars, that Vedanta made at the 2018 South Africa Investment Conference, and the company said it wants to add zinc smelting capacity in the Northern Cape and build a wider zinc and industrial hub around the mine.
The group arithmetic is the strategic point. Vedanta is targeting 3 million tonnes of annual zinc production across its two centres, with Hindustan Zinc in India contributing 2 million tonnes and Vedanta Zinc International 1 million tonnes. Hindustan Zinc’s own quarterly result, covered in a separate story today, shows the Indian leg earning record margins at sharply lower costs, which is the cash engine for the group’s expansion model.
Capacity is not production, and the test now is ramp up at Gamsberg against a zinc market the International Lead and Zinc Study Group expects to move into surplus in 2027, as covered in the October 20 roundup. Vedanta has also invested nearly 20 million dollars in community programmes in South Africa since 2011, benefiting more than 32,000 people a year, the company said.