FROM PIT TO PORT TO POWER HOW DR MUKESH KUMAR IS TURNING WASTE INTO WEALTH AT VULCAN INTERNATIONAL
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FROM PIT TO PORT TO POWER HOW DR MUKESH KUMAR IS TURNING WASTE INTO WEALTH AT VULCAN INTERNATIONAL
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hen Dr Mukesh Kumar took the helm of Vulcan International in 2022, the Moatize coal mine in Tete province had been designed, built, and equipped for 52 million tonnes of annual production — yet had never managed more than roughly 22 million tonnes in over a decade of operation. Three years later, under Kumar's leadership, that figure has more than doubled. The story of how it happened, he told Business Enquirer, comes down to three fundamental failures the previous operator never solved — and the discipline required to fix them without slowing down.
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Business Enquirer speaks with Dr Mukesh Kumar, CEO of Vulcan International, about doubling production at Moatize, building Africa's first fully electric mine, and why community trust is the foundation of a sustainable mining business.
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Dr Mukesh Kumar, CEO of Vulcan International.
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What Was Actually Broken "Right from day one, when the original company designed this plant, they designed it for 52 million tonnes of mining," Kumar explained. "This was one of the most modern plants — all the machinery, equipment, and human resources were there for 52 million tonnes — but they were operating at less than half of that capacity. Their fixed costs went very, very high." The core problem, he said, was logistics. Moatize's coal had to travel roughly 1,000 kilometres by rail to Nacala port, and the original evacuation infrastructure simply could not keep pace. "The port available was a shallow port — not having the depth to bring in vessels larger than 35,000 to 40,000 tonnes. For a plant of that scale, you require Capesize and Panamax vessels." Even after a dedicated rail line was commissioned in 2017, turnaround times between the mine and the port stretched to 130–140 hours, a bottleneck that choked the entire operation. The third issue, Kumar said, was more human than mechanical. "There was a lack of involvement of local people in decision-making. Our understanding is that they were being used as decisionfollowers or decision-implementers, but not as decision-makers." Vulcan International's turnaround rested on addressing all three. "Number one, on the human resource front: making every employee accountable and responsible for performing. Second, maximizing — or 'sweetening' — the assets we already had. And third, reducing that turnaround time between Moatize and Nacala from 131 hours to less than 60 hours, so the same railway logistics and locomotives could handle double the capacity." Advanced technologies, artificial intelligence tools, and significant investment in workforce skills followed. "We feel proud of our human resources," Kumar said. "They have demonstrated that if you have trust in your team, if you make them a partner in decision-making, your team can deliver wonderful things." 4
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Holding the Line Through a Price Collapse That operational discipline was tested almost immediately. Between 2024 and 2025, global metallurgical coal prices fell by almost half. "It was really a challenge for us," Kumar said. "If we don't maintain our discipline, our quality, our commitment, then we'll be nowhere." Rather than retreat, Vulcan International leaned further into efficiency — including a deliberate push on workforce empowerment that extended to gender diversity. "We found women were one of the major torchbearers," Kumar said. "We believe in women's empowerment, and when we started empowering them at 6
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every level, they came up." Combined with AI-driven optimization of consumables and a shift to OEM spare parts — replacing damaging duplicate parts that had been degrading plant performance — the results were measurable: plant uptime rose from roughly 380 hours per month to around 600 hours per month under Vulcan International's management. Kumar was candid about the scale of the underlying operational challenge. "We are operating one of the toughest mines in the world," he said, noting that Moatize's run-of-mine coal carries around 45% ash content, yet must be processed into steel-grade coking coal with less than 10% ash. "In other countries you get a yield of 60%, 70%, even 80%. Here we get only 20
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to 25%. A company with 20% productivity has to compete with companies operating at 70 to 80%." Meeting that challenge, he said, required continuous training and a deliberate culture of humility. "We are not saying we are mature people. We are learning, and we will remain in a learning phase — that's what will help us improve every day."
electrification programme that will also power Africa's first fully electric mine.
Turning Waste Into Wealth
"We realized this waste could be converted into electricity," Kumar said. "We gave one principle to everybody: don't consider anything waste until you waste it. The choice is yours — whether you want to treat waste as your liability or your opportunity. We told them, let's convert waste into wealth."
Perhaps the most striking element of Vulcan International's strategy is its approach to the roughly 55–60% of mined material that yields no coking coal at all. Historically sent to landfill, that waste is now the feedstock for a 300-megawatt waste-to-energy plant — part of a broader
The commercial logic is significant. Vulcan International currently spends around $300 million a year on diesel. "If I can save that cost by utilizing my waste, it's a game-changer," Kumar said. Securing government approval took time, he acknowledged, as officials initially Business Enquirer Magazine
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VULCAN INTERNATIONAL MINING assumed the project was simply another coal-fired plant. "We told them, it is not a coal-based plant — it is a waste-to-energy plant." Government ultimately approved a 300MW demonstration facility, which Kumar believes could scale significantly. "If this demonstration is successful, this waste stream could become a source for producing around 5,000 megawatts of electricity — enough for several countries around us: Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi. And we're not opening any new mines to do it. We're avoiding climate change while contributing to climate protection." That power will fuel a full transition away from diesel-powered mining equipment. "Let us go 100% electric — mining, drilling machines, excavators, dumpers, railway, vehicles, buses, everything electric," Kumar said. Beyond Vulcan International's own $300 million annual saving, he argues the shift carries national significance: "It will be a saving for government too — an exchange saving, because countries are importing diesel and petrol, and that dominates national budgets. If we can promote clean energy for mining, railway, e-mobility, dependence on imports will reduce drastically." The waste-to-energy plant is scheduled to come online in December 2025, with the ambition of positioning Tete province as an energy hub not just for Mozambique, but for the wider region. Responding to the 2024 Suspension Order Kumar also addressed a December 2024 court order that required Vulcan International to suspend extraction across parts of the mine, following pollution complaints filed by NGOs during a period of civil unrest in Mozambique. "The court passed an order that within 72 hours we should close two sections close to the community, without giving regulators — the Ministry of Mines, the Ministry of Energy, the environmental authorities — a chance to be heard," Kumar said. Vulcan International filed an appeal. "We are audited monthly and quarterly, and Business Enquirer Magazine
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nothing was found in any investigation. You cannot pass an order based on old data — we have to look at the reality today." The Provincial Administrative Court ultimately suspended its own order after review, and Kumar says quarterly inspections have continued without incident since. "The court has never sought to reopen this case." Even so, he said Vulcan International requested the court formally close the matter roughly three months prior to this interview, given the case's continued appearance in media and social media despite the lack of an active opposing party. "We are a responsible corporate — we believe in ESG compliance, and this remains pending against every report we file. We are hopeful the case will be closed soon, because there is no evidence and no opposition able to justify the order."
An In-House Research Centre Built for a Uniquely Difficult Deposit Moatize's geology, Kumar explained, is markedly different from the continuous, horizontal coal seams found in Australia or elsewhere. "The African continent has a lot of earth faults — it's not a continuous deposit. It's a pit deposit, inclined at around 15 degrees, and impurity levels increase as we go down." That complexity led Vulcan International to build Africa's first Coal Research Centre, including a pilot coke oven facility of a kind normally found only at steelmaking companies, at a cost of more than $4–5 million. "We are the only mine in the world with a coke-oven plant inside a mine," Kumar said. "We are responsible for our coal — whatever properties we guarantee, we test in our own coke oven." The result, Business Enquirer Magazine
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he said, has been a marked improvement in customer trust. "In the last year and a half to two years, we have not received a single complaint." The centre's mandate has since expanded well beyond quality assurance. "When we were doing analysis, we found our coal contains rare earth elements not found elsewhere in the world — and we were wasting them," Kumar said. Vulcan International is now researching recovery of those rare earth elements from waste-to-energy byproducts, alongside development of a green cement product made from mine waste without limestone. The centre also functions as a training ground, with staff periodically rotated through it to build technical knowledge before returning to operations. 12
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Logistics as a Regional Growth Strategy Vulcan International's 912-kilometre rail corridor and access to Nacala — Southern Africa's deepest port — extend well beyond serving its own exports, Kumar said. Vulcan International's cargo division already provides freight services to Mozambique and Malawi, and the company has expressed formal interest in taking over operation of the underutilized government-run Nacala port, which currently handles only around 3 to 3.5 million tonnes of cargo annually. "We want to increase interconnectivity between Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique," Kumar said. "Right now, material from Zambia goes via Dar es Salaam, a very long route. Via Malawi and Nacala, it becomes a much shorter route."
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VULCAN INTERNATIONAL MINING He believes throughput at Nacala could realistically grow to 7–8 million tonnes with improved regional connectivity — resolving depth constraints that currently trouble operators using Maputo or Beira. "We are in railway, we are in power, we are in mines. Let us connect this route too, so our presence in the surrounding region is in place." The Case for Mozambique — and What's Holding It Back Asked what message he wants to deliver to investors and policymakers at African Mining Week, Kumar was direct about both the opportunity and the obstacles. "Mozambique is a place of opportunity — graphite, coal, gold, hydrocarbons, and other deposits. But the problem right now is poor infrastructure," he said. "If a mining company wants to export metal or concentrate, you need infrastructure — railways, ports. Building that takes time." He also pointed to a lack of governmentled exploration as a structural gap. "Government has no focus on exploration — it depends on external parties, and those parties feel that without adequate infrastructure, it's difficult to commit." Recent policy changes, he added, have made the investment case harder rather than easier, including a new requirement for a 15% free carry stake for government in mining projects, alongside changes to VAT exemption rules for exports. "These policy changes have not been well received by the international mining community, and that's why some are refraining from opening new mines here." Kumar noted that Mozambique's leadership has acknowledged the issue. "Our president has said, 'we are trying to understand the problems, and we will make policy reforms where required.'" He struck a cautiously optimistic tone about the trajectory under President Daniel Chapo, who took office roughly a year before this interview. "He is making changes and trying to look into every aspect — results are yet to be seen, but we may see sustainable progress in future."
Five Years Out: Power, People, and a Social License to Operate Asked what full realization of Vulcan International's ambition looks like within five years, Kumar returned first to the communities surrounding Moatize. "Community impact is one of the most important things, because unless you have a social license to operate from your adjoining community, you cannot run any business," he said. Vulcan International's approach centers on enabling entrepreneurship rather than dependency: skills training, support for local agriculture and agro-based businesses, and investment in modern schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. "We should not take undue advantage of their poverty. Let us contribute — this is your security for the future, not an expenditure." On the industrial side, Vulcan International's ambitions by 2030 include reaching approximately 2,000 megawatts of power generation, deeper connectivity into Zambia and Malawi, participation in dry port and port infrastructure, and continued rail electrification — all aimed at delivering more affordable, reliable energy across the region. "We feel we should become an example to other industries," Kumar said. "Please don't consider investment in communityrelated activities as an expenditure. It is value creation — it is your security for your future business, along with inclusive growth." Reflecting on the broader stakes, Kumar closed with a wider ambition for the company and the country it operates in. "I hope people will get the message out of this, and more investors will come to Mozambique by seeing us as an example," he said. "This Mozambique will be a different Mozambique."
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