MCM launches five-year strategy
Staff Writer | Tuesday November 1, 2022 06:00
As production ramps up, the mine also plans on increasing revenues from P1 billion in 2023 to P3 billion by 2027.
The steady increase in demand for MCM products by Asian and European markets has informed the mine's five-year strategy.
Meanwhile, the war in Russia has sparked an energy crisis from Europe to Asia lifting demand and prices for coal while reversing years of disfavour the commodity has endured as a result of the global transition to green energy sources.
Officiating at the launch, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Minerals and Energy, Johannes Tsimako said MCM plays a critical role in the general output of the national economic activity and there is a need for a continuous and well-measured re-calibration of how it can be used to unearth new value and benefits to the people.
He said MCM has always maintained a record of growth in its production from 1.2 to 2.8 million tonnes of coal per annum, which is soon expanding further to 4.2 million tonnes per annum through the recent Motheo Project, a project which is under the new corporate strategy. “The new strategy will run and thrive under a renewed brand promise of a seam of value under the tagline, ‘We are a globally competitive supplier,'” he said.
To date, MCM has started with the delivery of over 60,000 tonnes out of 170,000 tonnes of coal destined to the seaborne market through Maputo-Mozambique as the company marsh to meet its 2022-2027 coal tonnage output.
On his part, MCM CEO Edwin Ellias said they shall marshal all their resources to ensure that this new strategy is fully resourced so that "we can meet our set targets and drive the business profile of the mine to much greater heights". "I can assure you that our road to 2027 has started and no roadblock or pothole will be allowed to slow down our journey.
We are focused, we are resolute, and we are committed to delivering on our promise.
The strategy was developed under the theme 'Togetherness' and is simply a rallying call to staff and stakeholders that we must be in this thing together,” he said.
He added the new corporate strategy is the intent to make their staff the primary drivers of the mine's operational excellence. “We have a plan in place whereby we want to capacitate them in various aspects of the new ways of doing business which the strategy suggests,” Ellias said. Morupule was established in 1973, then called Morupule Colliery, with its primary mandate to service the BCL power plant and the Botswana Power Corporation.
Though it took a while to service other markets, the mine then started to service external markets, especially southern African states like South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.