Archive | Diamond Mining

https://www.miningweekly.com/

The artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector is in need of formalisation in order to establish itself as a legitimate source of diamond supply; however, faced with complex mining ecosystems and operating conditions that are vastly different from the large-scale diamond mining sector, De Beers says “the approach to supporting formalisation must be tailored, incremental and robust”.

While the ASM sector represents an important source of global diamond production and is a critical livelihood, artisanal miners face many challenges, including a lack of capital, low productivity and informal practices, according to the diamond miner.

Additionally, De Beers says legacy concerns regarding conflict diamonds also mean that ASM diamonds are “often perceived negatively by consumers, when the reality is that the vast majority of ASM production is not from conflict zones”. Continue Reading →

https://www.independent.co.uk/

Diamond’s name ‘Sewelo’ translates to ‘rare find’

Louis Vuitton has purchased the world’s second-largest diamond, a 1,758-carat gem known as the Sewelo diamond.

On Wednesday, it was reported that the luxury French fashion house purchased the diamond for “millions” as the brand turns its attention from leather handbags to high jewellery.

The Sewelo diamond was found in Botswana in April 2019 at the Karowe mine by Lucara Diamond Corp. The name of the gem means “rare find” in Tswana – one of the languages spoken in Botswana. Continue Reading →

https://www.bloombergquint.com/

(Bloomberg Businessweek) — You know you have a marketing problem when you find yourself arguing that the competitor’s product is “simply too perfect looking.” Or when you fall back on warning people that if they buy the competitor’s product they may not be able to resell it—when reselling it was never their intention anyway.

That’s the diamond business for you. It gets harder every year for diamond merchants to fetch a good price for their product because the competition is insane. First there’s mounting production of natural diamonds. And now synthetic diamonds have gotten so good that for average customers they’re indistinguishable from the kind that come out of the ground.

On top of all that, some customers are turned off by the violence endemic in parts of diamond mining, featured in Leonardo DiCaprio’s film Blood Diamond. What’s a strategist to do? For De Beers, the diamond-mining unit of Anglo American Plc, conflict diamonds may be the smallest of its problem. Continue Reading →

https://www.reuters.com/

KIMBERLEY, South Africa (Reuters) – The first South African project to bring illegal miners into the formal fold has been plagued by violence in diamond capital Kimberley, dealing a major blow to national efforts to stem a booming illicit trade.

The project was launched 18 months ago in Kimberley, the site of a 19th-century diamond rush that lured fortune-seekers from the world over. Mine owners granted more than 800 unlicensed, or informal, small-scale miners the right to legally mine around 1,500 acres of diamond-rich waste fields.

The aim of the government-backed scheme was to curb illegal mining and black-market trade of diamonds, and serve as a blueprint for future attempts elsewhere in the country, not only in the diamond sector, but also potentially manganese, gold and chrome. Continue Reading →

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Speaking at the Diamond Conference in Gaborone, Botswana, De Beers Group CEO, Bruce Cleaver, answered a range of questions that are vital to the fast-changing diamond industry.

Here is what he had to say: How has the diamond industry has managed to sustain its success over the years? Why has Botswana managed to generate so much diamond success when many other countries have struggled to maximise the benefits of their diamonds? What will be important in future if we are to maintain success?

The answer, as is so often the case with simple-looking questions, is in fact complex. Success requires a combination of many different things, all of which depend on the efforts of a great many people and organisations. Continue Reading →

https://www.miningweekly.com/

Diamond-producing countries on the African continent received about $8.1-billion in 2018, or 9.5% of the $85.9-billion worth of revenues generated from the sale of diamond jewellery, and some still may consider that an insufficient share, World Diamond Council (WDC) president Stephane Fischler told delegates attending the Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi, Russia, earlier this week.

He stressed that the economic potential of the diamond resource, whose value increased by about a factor of five as it travelled from the mine to the countertop of the retail jeweller, was indisputable.

“Diamond deposits hold the promise of a better future for all African producing countries, and more specifically for the communities living in the areas where they are located. Continue Reading →