Maddhyapara Granite Mining Company Ltd (MGMCL), a subsidiary of Petrobangla, the state-owned energy company, will sign a contract on Monday with Belarus-based Germania-Trest Consortium to operate the country’s lone hard rock mine. “Our aim is to produce 9.2 million tonnes of hard rock from the Maddhyapara granite mine. We will sign the production and operation contract with Germania, that will cost around USD 171 million (Tk. 1,400 crore) for six years,” Petrobangla director (mine and minerals) Engineer M Moinuddin told The Independent.
Maddhyapara has potential mineable reserves of around 174 million tonnes.
At present, it produces around 1.2 million tonnes against the countrywide annual demand of around 6.5 million tonnes of hard rocks.
Maddhyapara Granite Mining Company Ltd. was established with the responsibility of production of hard rock and marketing and sale of the produced hard rock to different government entities, including the public works department (PWD), roads and highways, the Water Development Board and the Bangladesh Railway.
North Korea-based Namnam started developing the mine under a 1994 suppliers’ credit contract with the aim of launching it before 2001. But it went into hard rock production only in 2006. The mine suffered losses of at least Tk. 93 crore till July 2010.
“Unfortunately, the company did not provide the credit. It could not properly complete the construction, so we went in for another party,” an official explained.
Till now, MGMCL has extracted only 311,830 tonnes of rocks, said a senior official of the company.
Sources said the mine’s operation costs amount to Tk. 5 crore each month while its rock production hardly fetches Tk. 4.5 crore.
An MGMCL official said the company has earned Tk. 105 crore since August 2008 till now through 14 dealers. The second shift would require 100 trained miners in addition to 382 miners working in one shift. The company will start work within 18 months, an official said.
Though the country requires 60 to 65 lakh tonnes of hard rock annually — way above MGMCL’S production capacity — the mine has failed to tap the market and attract buyers.
Sources said all the boulder rock produced at the mine has remained unsold because of its extra large size. But demand for crushed granite (5-20 inches) is increasing in the local market.
The mining authority sells boulder rock at USD 15 per tonne and crushed rock at USD 17 per tonne.
The mine is costing the nation USD 158 million. An Investment Committee in 2005 found out that a total of USD 120 million has been invested in the mine. Of this sum, Bangladesh paid more than USD 71 million even though it is the borrower, while lender North Korea gave USD 49 million. But as the project was going nowhere, MGMCL has conditionally taken over the unfinished mine.
-With The Independent input
