De Beers marine mining ships, like the one seen above, are returning to port for an extended period, part of a cost and production reduction plan

Inline with De Beers’ decision to scale back production, the company’s African operations are starting to reduce production. In South Africa, Namibia and Botswana staff levels have been reduced, most on early holiday leave, some are not expected to return.

In South Africa, De Beers Consolidated Mines (DBCM) extended employee holiday vacations by ten production days, starting December 15 and returning January 12. The company is not planning any lay-offs, according to DBCM spokesman Tom Tweedy, however it is already considering a number of scenarios for 2009 production. A decision will be made in January after holiday sales results come in.

continue reading "De Beers Sends Workers on Early Holiday Vacation as African Operations Slowdown"

Compared to the previous months, South Africa’s diamond production fell 7.5 percent in the September quarter according to Statistics South Africa.

Total figures for each commodity division were not provided in the preliminary report based on the country’s total production and sales from the mining sector. An average of 8.3 % was met between July and September, during which the diamond sector’s contribution to total production fell 0.8 percentage points from quarter to quarter.

South Africa ranks world’s fourth largest producer by value in 2007 after Botswana, Russia and Canada, however its diamond production has slowed down in recent years. Production fell by 4% coming down to $1.361 billion in 2007, or also interpreted as 2 percent in volume terms to 14.9 million carats, according to the Kimberley Process statistics.

continue reading "South Africa Diamond Production Decreases"

South Africa hopes to phase in measures to convince miners to process more of their output locally to encourage growth of industry and skills in South Africa, the minister of minerals and energy said on Tuesday.

South Africa’s beneficiation policy already requires that 10 percent of diamonds be processed in-country, helping develop a downstream cutting and polishing industry employing more people.

Officials have said in the past that diamonds were a test case for other minerals such as steelmaking raw materials, including iron ore and chrome, as well as platinum group metals, base metals and uranium.

“The effort is two-pronged. We will continue to supply raw materials. But we also encourage companies to beneficiate in South Africa, through incentives,” Buyelwa Sonjica said at a conference in Beijing.

continue reading "South Africa to expand mineral processing: minister"

PERTH - Two diamond juniors were about to commence diamond mining in South Africa, one the ASX-listed Bonaparte on a full-scale basis and the other the JSE-listed Tawana on a trial basis, the companies said on Tuesday.

Bonaparte MD Mike Woodborne has told the 2008 Paydirt World Diamond Conference that full-scale mining would begin at Savanna this month, and Tawana MD Wolf Marx said trial mining was about to begin at its flagship Kareevlei Wes kimberlite project.

Both Woodborne and Marx are both South African-born miners who now live in Australia.

Woodborne, whose Bonaparte company is also planning to mine phosphates offshore of Namibia, said that the upgrading of the Savanna production plant was nearing completion.

This would allow full production by the end of October, generating Bonaparte’s first mainstream mining revenue.

continue reading "Two diamond juniors to begin mining in South Africa"

A short supply of rough diamonds is causing the South African diamond industry to shrink.

The South African diamond cutting industry is in crisis over the short supply of rough diamonds and has convened an industry meeting this month to address the woes that have shrunk the sector.

President of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses Ernest Blom told Mineweb the South African industry was suffering as the newly established State Diamond Trader was not providing the sector with adequate rough diamond supply for beneficiation yet. The industry was also no longer receiving rough diamond supply from De Beers subsidiary Diamdel.

Blom said the trader was buying about 3% of  De Beers’diamond production for supply to local beneficiators, while it was set up to buy 10% of the country’s rough production for supply to local cutters and polishers.

continue reading "South African diamond industry in “crisis”"

De Beers Consolidated Mines (DBCM) has opened discussions with Trans Hex about their interest in the future of Namaqualand Mines (NM).

In February 2007, De Beers committed to introducing a mining company with empowerment credentials to NM, and to supporting the possible consolidation of West Coast diamond mining assets thereby improving the probable sustainability of mining in the region. The company remains supportive of this vision being explored in the future.

DBCM is actively contributing to transformation and to broadening the base of ownership in the diamond mining sector in South Africa. The company has delivered on the promise to promote transformation when it undertook a broad based empowerment exercise at the corporate level in 2006. The company is looking at opportunities for empowerment when reviewing its portfolio of operating mines. In the past few years mines such as Koffiefontein and the Cullinan diamond mine have been transferred to consortia with broad empowerment credentials which include women, communities, and black empowerment groups.

Namaqualand is an economically viable alluvial diamond mining operation - the largest alluvial diamond mine in South Africa - with production in 2008 projected to be approximately 330,000 carats.

De Beers does not expect this process to have any materially negative impact on jobs at the mine.

Source: www.diamondintelligence.com

De Beers’ explorers still see the potential for a major new diamond discovery in South Africa and that’s why the company’s exploration team is continuing to invest in exploration in South Africa, says diamond doyen Nicky Oppenheimer. Is there a chance of another Venetia, South Africa’s richest diamond mine, which was stumbled upon in the seventies?

“You obviously don’t know the answer to that,” is Oppenheimer’s reply.

“But De Beers is spending money on exploration in South Africa and we obviously wouldn’t be doing that if we didn’t think there was potential,” he adds.

“As everybody knows, the discovery of diamond mines is a very time-consuming and difficult task, and if you ask how many diamond mines are there in the world, and by that I don’t mean somebody scratching something on the surface and employing a few people but major diamond mines, you find that diamond mines are very few and far between.

continue reading "Still chance of major new diamond discovery in South Africa – Oppenheimer"