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More On Mystery No. 1
In the
September and
October issues of The Lowdown, we wrote of the
Mysteries of Hippo Mine. Oliver Irwin contacted us and had this to
say:
Hippo Mine was
owned and operated by Zoo Copper Company Limited which was
registered on 11 December 1965. Simon Zukas and I were appointed
directors on 31 December 1972. Simon sold
his 10,000 shares on 26 July 1977 and ceased to be a director. Laddy
Kropacek sold all his shares in Zoo Copper Company on 28
February
1980 to a Kitwe
company owned by Oliver, Henry Oosthuizen and Ron Marais. Laddy
Kropacek left the mine to exploit a proven gold deposit just North
of Lubungu pontoon, but died before he was able to actually start
work. It was after this that we carried out open cast mining and
removed
the pillars.
The work was completed and the mining licence expired
twenty years ago but I still remain a director and shareholder in
Zoo Copper Company, which now only has a historical connection with
Hippo
Mine and retains the
records including the first mining licence.
Simon is not correct when he quotes
the ore grade
as 13%. I have the
sampling reports
from the
smelter division of Rokana
Corporation where
the
Hippo ore was processed. The report dated of 28 October
1980 for
example, reflects a grade of 20.98%
The only
‘mystery’
surrounding Hippo Mine relates
to the various
people who mined and smeltered copper there for many many years long before
any Europeans found
the deposit.
Oliver also kindly
let us have a copy of an article which appeared in the 1973 edition
of the Coopers Journal, written by Laddy Kropacek, who ran the mine
from 1967 to 1980. We reproduce this article below:
ABOUT sixty miles
northwest of Mumbwa Township, in the northern section of the Kafue
National Park, one will find a little copper mine which has quite a
colourful history. It was started at the end of the 19th Century and
the first explorations were undertaken by the Kafue Copper
Development Company. It was then known as Chikusu Mine.
In 1905 two
Europeans and three Africans were killed by a hippo, which resulted
in the closing of the mine and it assumed the present name of Hippo
Mine. The victims of the tragedy are buried nearby, one of the
graves bearing a tombstone with the inscription "Jacob Elliot, died
aged 37 years, 1905".
Exploration was
resumed by the same company about 30 years ago, but due to the low
price of copper and what appeared to be a small deposit, operations
were abandoned once again.
In 1964, just
before Independence, the B.S.A. Company decided to develop this
little deposit but after Zambia attained Independence the Mineral
Rights were taken over by the Government and work came to a halt for
the third time. Mr. V.H. Allison who at that time worked for the
B.S.A. Company and was going to run the mine on their behalf, pegged
it, intending to "go it alone". This was in 1965. I was then acting
to Mr. Allison, on a friendly basis, as a technical advisor and
estimated that £40,000 would be required to get the mine off the
ground. Soon Mr. Allison discovered that it was an impossible task
alone and with little financial resources, so he decided to form a
small company. Since that mine was called Hippo Mine and situated
inside the Kafue National Park, he named the company Zoo Copper
Company. The share capital was only a quarter of my estimation and
only a half of that subscribed. However, I bought some shares for
good luck. As a result of heavy under capitalisation, the company
struggled on until the summer of 1967.
I was on leave in
the U.K. when I received the telex from Lusaka asking me to return
to Lusaka without delay or to cable instructions what to do with the
mine. Mr. Allison had unfortunately died after an accident at the
mine. It was a great decision to make, but after much thought I
decided to give up my job and see what I could do with Zoo Copper
Company. So I returned to Lusaka - to find the company was Bankrupt!
However, I managed to raise more money, got a Government loan and
struggled on. Most of the shareholders gave it up, but I still
carried on with my own resources because I could see the potential,
but in the end found it too much to shoulder alone, as Mr. Allison
had, and started to look for additional capital. Three times I tried
to sell the mine but when the deal seemed imminent, it always fell
through. At the beginning of this year, the situation was desperate
and at one time I considered asking the Government to take it over.
Before this I had made arrangements with the Bank for overdraft
facilities but the Exchange Control stepped in and we were back to
square one. One day Mr. O. J. Irwin of Cooper Brothers came to Hippo
Mine for some fishing and heard the hard luck story. He had a look
around the mine and without saying much left for Lusaka. I thought
no more of it but to my surprise, within a few days I was advised
that Mr. Irwin and some friends decided to inject more capital into
the Company. We used this partially to replace some of the equipment
and the remainder to be used as working capital. We started off once
more.
The mine employs
roughly 40 people with two only on the management side, Edmond
Marira and myself. I must admit that it has been very hard work
running the mine and without Edmond's support, I do not think I
could have carried on so long. We "make hay while the sun shines" as
it were, since we can only transport the copper concentrate during
the dry season, the road to Mumbwa being too bad for heavy vehicles
in the wet season. Operation of all mines is unpredictable,
especially small ones which are usually under capitalised, but with
the new injection of capital, Hippo Mine is in a better position
than ever before and we can now hope for a happy ending.
Life itself can be
very pleasant here. We are close to the Kafue River where the
fishing is good, although I have never managed to beat or even equal
the fishing results of the miners with their home-made rods. We have
a boat in which we have had many adventures, one particular one when
a crocodile dropped, or fell off, an overhanging tree into the water
- just missing us by a few inches. Due to the position of the mine,
game is abundant, there is almost everything except giraffe and
kudu. In our area we can shoot "for the pot", to supply some meat
for the labour.
Next year we plan
to do more prospecting and so will see what the future has in store.
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December
2005