Maputo — The exploitation of titanium bearing heavy sands in Moma district, in the northern province of Nampula, has run into snags because of oscillations in the supply of electricity.

Speaking to reporters in Maputo on Thursday, Gareth Clifton, the director in Mozambique of the Irish company Kenmare, which owns the concession on the Moma heavy sands, said that Kenmare has been working with the Mozambican electricity company, EDM, to solve the problem.

In its first year of operation, 2007, Kenmare did not meet its targets for production (and thus for export), due to power oscillations and to the breakdown of some of the equipment used in the plant. A serious electrical problem occurred in September this year, which shut the dredge mine down for 62 hours, and damaged some of the equipment.

"We have replaced the equipment", said Clifton. "Now we have overcome the problem, and we are producing normally".

Clifton was speaking shortly after signing an agreement with the Minister of Mineral Resources, Esperanca Bias, on implementing a Business Links Programme for Moma. The purpose of such programmes, according to Bias, is to stimulate the growth of small and medium companies by involving them in supplying goods and services to mega-projects.

Thanks to the Moma mine, Mozambique is now responsible for around six per cent of world production of ilmenite (iron titanium oxide), rutile (titanium doxide) and zircon (zirconium silicate).

The current production targets at Moma are for 800,000 tonnes of ilmenite, 56,000 tonnes of zircon and 21,000 tonnes of Rutile a year. But if market conditions permit, Kenmare says that production could rise to 1.2 million tonnes of ilmenite, 80,000 tonnes of zircon and 30,000 tonnes of rutile.

Clifton told reporters that, despite the global financial crisis, the prices of titanium ores have remained stable on the world market. Hence the crisis had not affected the Moma mine, and Kenmare intends to maintain its expansion plans.