Maputo, March 13, 2026 (Lusa) - At least five companies have closed down, and dozens of others may halt operations at the Beluluane Industrial Park in southern Mozambique, an official source told Lusa on Friday, following Sunday's suspension of Mozal, Africa's largest smelter.
"We estimate that there are 25 companies that provide goods and services to Mozal. We have already been informed that most of these companies, due to the suspension of activities at Mozal, are also considering taking similar measures," said Onório Manuel, director-general of Mozparks, the entity that manages the industrial park, the largest in the country, 20 kilometres from Maputo.
He explained that with Mozal, Mozambique's largest industry, with over 1,000 direct and 4,000 indirect employees, entering a maintenance and conservation phase, more companies are now expected to start closing down, since some of these factories had to continue operating until the smelter shut down, "because they were part of the process of safely shutting down Mozal."
"At the moment, we already have five that have already ceased operations, those that were much more closely linked to production, because there are companies that provide electrical maintenance, industrial maintenance and so on (...). There are already about five companies that are now completely shut down with no prospect of returning," he said.
According to Onório Manuel, these shutdowns put around 4,000 jobs at risk in factories neighbouring the smelter: "We are talking about countless jobs in companies linked to Mozal's value chain, not necessarily Mozal itself."
For the director-general of Mozparks, with the departure of the factory in Mozambique, a "disastrous" impact is now expected on the pace of growth and development of the park, which, according to him, was "very fast and attracting more and more industries".
"But this impact is not only reflected in the park, but it is also reflected in the local economy of the province and the whole country. Mozal is not one of those industries whose impact is felt only in one industrial unit, which is the Beleluane Park, it is an entity with a large-scale impact," he said.
He also considered that the news of Mozal's closure reached all international markets that may in some way be interested in Mozambique, bringing a series of risks that deter investments, especially large ones, and have a significant impact on the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
"In terms of manufacturing, [Mozal] contributed an average of 49% to gross domestic product, i.e., Mozambique's GDP is $16 billion [€13.8 million], and manufacturing contributes 10%. We are talking about a $1.6 billion [€1.3 million] contribution from industry, almost half of which is Mozal's contribution, so Mozambique's GDP, especially in the social sector, will decline," he concluded.
On Friday, Lusa reported that Australia's South32 considered the energy tariff proposed for the Mozal aluminium smelter in Maputo to be "totally unsustainable", thus justifying its closure on 15 March, without ruling out reactivating Mozambique's largest industry if conditions change.
In a recent call with Australian investors, a transcript of which Lusa had access to and which involved the presentation of the latest results of the group that leads Mozal and other smelters, CEO Graham Kerr explained that Eskom's "only formal offer" for energy supply was almost $100 per megawatt-hour (MWh), when "outside China, less than 1%" of smelters have contracts above $50 per MWh.
LCE/ADB // ADB.
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