Maputo — The mining company Vulcan Mozambique, which is part of the Indian Jindal Group, on Monday restated its willingness to continue coal mining operations at Moatize, in the western province of Tete, despite a ten day strike by some of the work force which partly shut down the company's operations.

The managing director of Vulcan, Ashish Kumar, expressed the company's determination to carry on in separate meetings with the Secretary of State for Tete Province, Elisa Zacarias, and the Tete provincial governor, Domingos Viola.

A Vulcan press release said that Kumar had claimed in these meetings that a group of "outsiders" had tried to stop the Vulcan employees from returning to work, and had thrown stones at company buses. Workers who refused to join the strike had been threatened, he alleged.

He said Vulcan had worked with representatives of the government and of the trade unions in an attempt to reach a solution. He reiterated Vulcan's promise that the workers would lose none of their acquired rights.

Kumar asked the government to guarantee the security of the mining operations and of the workers, faced with "acts of vandalism".

Zacarias pledged that the government would indeed guarantee security at the mine, but requested a calendar of all the activities the company intends to take to normalise its operations.

Vulcan acquired the mine from the Brazilian mining giant Vale, which sold the mine and the Nacala Logistics Corridor (the railway from Moatize to the port of Nacala-a-Velha) for 270 million US dollars

Domingos Viola said the transition from Vale to Vulcan was discussed at the central, provincial and district levels, and he urged the company to be pro-active in its communications, in order to avoid speculation.

Viola called for "administrative measures" against any of the strikers who did not return to work, and stressed the government's support for private investment.