Diamond Fields relaunches Namibian marine operations

Vancouver — The MV Kovambo is steaming toward Diamond Fields International‘s (DFI-T) marine diamond concessions, off the southern coast of Namibia, where mining is set to resume.

Earlier this year, Diamond Fields entered a 50-50 joint venture with Samicor Mining Services, a company owned by LL Mining (part of the Leviev Group of Israel), to carry out mining on the former’s marine licence near Luderitz. The agreement will generate much-needed revenue for Diamond Fields and ensure its monthly operational costs are capped at US$400,000.

The Kovambo, a 104-metre, 3,300-tonne vessel, is owned by Samicor and comes equipped with a sea-bed crawler, 50-tonne-per-hour dense media plant, and X-ray sorting plant. The crew will number about 60, who will operate on two shifts. The crawler processes diamondiferous sediments along the sea floor and operates by remote control; Samicor acquired it when Namibian Minerals had its assets liquidated in 2003.

The crawler-based technology is expected to increase production rates, compared with previous, air-lift operations.

Diamond Fields has produced more than 65,000 carats of diamonds in the area, 95% of which were gem quality, and sold them for total proceeds of about US$9 million.

The Marshall Fork, Diaz Reef and Conical Beach areas have a total resource exceeding 1 million carats. Grades at the western portion of Marshall Fork have proved consistently higher than predicted by a feasibility study, suggesting that resource estimates are conservative.

The high-gem-quality marine diamond deposits on the Namibian and South African coasts are the result of millions of years of weathering and erosion in the southern African kimberlite fields. Fluvial transport by the Orange-Vaal River system carries the diamond-bearing sediment toward the Atlantic, preferentially breaking up and destroying many of the non-gem-quality stones, owing to their impurities, inclusions and structural flaws. Where the river meets the ocean, the diamond-rich sands and gravels spill out on to the delta and are reworked by waves and currents. The prevailing southerly winds have driven most of the diamond-rich sediments northward by longshore drift, depositing them linearly along benches and the shoreline. The deposits lie both on-shore and off-shore, as a result of fluctuation ocean levels over tens of millions of years.

Since the initial discovery of diamonds on the Namibian coast, in 1908, the region has produced more than 100 million carats of stones with an average gem quality exceeding 90%. The country’s 2002 production was 1.7 million carats with a value of US$472 million. The government of Namibia receives a 10% royalty on all diamond production.

The privately owned Leviev Group is one of the world’s largest diamond companies. A former purchasing client of De Beers, Leviev now acquires its rough diamond supply directly from sources in Russia, Angola and Namibia and is active in exploration and development. The group cuts and polishes more that US$1 billion worth of diamonds annually.

In addition to its Namibian operations, Diamond Fields is exploring nickel and diamond projects in Greenland, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Madagascar.