Principal Electrical and Energy Advisor, AngloGold Ashanti Africa Business Unit (ABU), Kisman Eghan, has described as worrying the cost of power to mining firms, saying, it constitutes between 15% and 40% of operational cost of a mine.

According to him, a typical 200,000 ounces of mine will pay between $20 million to $40 million per annum on energy.

“That is huge! And also due to the complexities of the sort of equipment that we use”, he disclosed at a recent panel discussion at the 17th West Africa Mining and Power Expo.

Availability and reliability of power

Mr. Eghan also expressed worry about the availability and reliability of power, saying, “In our world, for instance, the availability of power, where we sit in the central portion of town, until recently that the KWTV was operationalised we used to have a series of interruptions which is affecting a lot of mines there".

“So, generation…even the location of the generation itself. Most of Ghana - we have all the generation - located in the southern sector, which does not help most of the mines in the central and northern portion of the country”, he stated.

“So that is one. And then the reliability side, which as far as we are concerned, the transmission lines.

“There has been a programme about two, three years ago, where I'm involved. I think we contributed close to 850,000 to help. And this is all in an attempt to improve the reliability of power to our mines”, he added.

Intermittent power supply

Mr. Eghan was worried again about the intermittent power supply in mining areas and the availability of power, saying, one hour loss of power is equivalent to about 45 ounces for a typical 400,000 ounces production mine.

He said it takes most of the processing plants between two to three hours to return to normalcy and therefore one-hour loss of power is equivalent to about 45 ounces.

“It's a lot, it's about $110,000. So, if I have one interruption and it takes me three hours to come back, that three hours is equivalent to about $350,000. Now imagine I'm in the central portion and I have seven or 10 of such interruptions in a day. We are talking about $350,000 multiplied by 10, $3.5 million dollars. So, you see where we're coming from”, he mentioned.

“It's a lot of burden on us. That's why we are ready to even assist the utilities. Is there anything we can do to help you so that the reliability level will be okay for us? So that cost availability, reliability will be better”, he added.

Mining firms partnership with utilities

Due to the rising cost of power, the mining firms have called for partnerships with the utility firms.

For instance, Mr. Eghan said his outfit is constructing 100 megawatts solar to the tune of $125 million.

However, it cannot bear the cost alone and need support of the utility firms.

“I cannot bear that cost alone. Yet I need to reduce my emission from a certain level where I am to a certain level by 2030 and 2050. So, all these things are coming to play here because we know when the renewables come in the cost would even go down”.

“We were happy when the Energy Sector Recovery Programme came in because we knew the bottom line is that the huge debt will be solved. Reliability will be taken care of and then the costs will also be tackled”, he noted.

He concluded that “We are all waiting for that to happen so that we can also mine more”.