Tanzania: government supports coal quality complaints

A Tanzanian government-commissioned report has confirmed that the quality of locally-produced coal is questionable. The Commissioner of Minerals tasked an independent committee to establish why major coal users in the country, especially cement manufacturers, prefer imported to local coal.

The report follows a government ban on coal imports earlier this year. Minister of Energy and Minerals, Prof Sospeter Muhongo, said recently that the ban would not be lifted because the country produces "enough good-quality coal”.

The ban has been criticised by cement manufacturers and the quality of locally-produced coal has come under scrutiny since the Mtwara-based Dangote cement plant suspended production last month.

Major challenges faced by cement manufacturers noted in the report include poor and/or fluctuating quality of coal, damage to kilns and a decrease in overall productivity. According to the report, Tancoal, the only active coal producer in the country, "has no coal processing plant which will produce coal of consistent quality demanded by the market. To date Tancoal has been practising selective mining which does not guarantee consistency in quality".

The report further says that the actual demand for coal in Tanzania and Kenya at that time (September 2015) was about 51,600tpm, which exceeds Tancoal's current production capacity of between 30,000-35,000tpm.