De Beers Commits to New Mine Development at Venetia


Workers conduct a pre-shift inspection on an RH200 shovel at De Beers’ Venetia surface diamond mine in South
Africa. De Beers plans to invest about $2 billion for a new underground mine beneath the current pit.
The De Beers Group announced in mid-February 2013 that it will invest approxi-mately R20 billion ($2 billion) to build a new underground mine beneath the cur-rently operating open-pit Venetia diamond mine in Limpopo province, South Africa. When completed, the underground mine will extend the life of Venetia until 2042 and replace the open pit as South Africa’s largest diamond mine. The announcement followed the receipt of the final outstanding regulatory clearances earlier in February.

The development and build phase of the Venetia underground mine is expected to create 1,000 jobs over the next nine years while open-pit mining operations continue. Underground operations will begin production in 2021, yielding approx-imately 96 million carats during the life of the mine and securing more than 3,000 jobs. The project will employ semi-skilled and skilled workers drawn primarily from the region and trained for the project.

The bulk of all equipment and services will be sourced in South Africa.

Philippe Mellier, CEO of the De Beers Group, said, “Our investment in Venetia enables us to provide greater certainty around long-term supply for our sighthold-ers, particularly those with manufacturing operations in South Africa. Our sighthold-ers have significant investments in the local cutting industry, and this new under-ground mine will provide a large and pre-dictable supply of rough diamonds for decades to come.”

As featured in Womp 2013 Vol 03 - www.womp-int.com