Petrobangla, the state-owned oil, gas and mineral company, has signed a contract with Germania Corporation Limited, a Belarus-based company, to operate the Maddhapara Granite Mining Company Ltd (MGMCL), the country’s lone hard rock mine. “We signed the production and operation contract with Germania, which would cost around USD 200 million for six years, for producing nine million tonnes of hard rock from the Maddhapara mine,” said M Abdul Matin, manager (mines and minerals), Petrobangla.
Maddhapara has potential mineable reserves of about 74 million tonnes. At present, it produces about 1.65 million tonnes of hard rock against the country’s demand for about 6.5 million tonnes.
Established with a daily production capacity of 5,500 million tonnes of hard rock from the underground mine, MGMCL markets and sells the mined product to different government entities, including the PWD, roads and highways department, Water Development Board and Bangladesh Railway.
North Korean company Namnam started developing the mine under a 1994 suppliers’ credit contract to launch it before 2001. It went into hard rock production in 2006, and till July 2010, the mine suffered a loss of at least Tk. 93 crore.
“Unfortunately, the company did not provide the credit as promised, nor could it properly complete the construction. As a result, we went for another party,” an official said. Till date, MGMCL extracted only 311,830 tonnes of rock, said a senior official of the company.
According to sources, operating the mine costs Tk. 2.4 crore each month, while its rock production hardly fetches Tk. 15 lakh a day.
MGMCL’s deputy general manager said the company had earned Tk. 105 crore since August, 2008, till date, through 14 dealers.
The second shift would require 250 trained miners, in addition to 292 working in one shift, an official said, adding that the company would start production within 18 months.
Though the country requires 60 to 65 lakh tonnes of hard rock annually, way above the MGMCL’s production capacity, the mine has failed to tap the market and attract buyers.
According to sources, the boulder rock produced in the mine has remained unsold due to 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 costs the nation USD 158 million. In 2005, an investment committee identified that a total of USD 120 million had been invested in the mine. Of this sum, Bangladesh, despite being the borrower, paid more than USD 71 million, while lender North Korea provided USD 49 million. As the project was going nowhere, the MGMCL conditionally took over the unfinished mine.
-With The Independent input
