Recently, in the legacy to liberation of SA Diamond Industry; the evolution of South Africa Diamond Industry, the focus on DeBeers in the history of the South African diamond industry.
By the 1990s, De Beers’ mining operation in South Africa was a mere shadow of what it once had been. In its heyday DBCM operated the Kimberley, De Beers, Dutoitspan, Wesselton and Finsch mines in what today is called the Northern Cape province, the Koffiefontein mine in the Free State province and the Premier mine in Gauteng, where in 1905 the 3,106-carat Cullinan Diamond had been discovered. Premier’s name was changed to Cullinan in 2003, in celebration of its 100th of year of operation.
In the 1990s De Beers brought on stream the Venetia mine in what is today called the Limpopo province and in 2008 the smaller Voorspoed mine in the Free State, which was shut down in 2018 after 10 years of operation. De Beers marine mining operation, headquartered in Cape Town, which operated off the northwest coast of the country, was the forerunner for what today is a considerably larger marine mining operation across the border in Namibia.
But De Beers’ South African operation was always worth more than the sum of its collective parts, and in many respects was the birthplace of the diamond industry as we know it today. A direct line can be drawn from the discovery of diamonds in Kimberley in 1869, to the development of De Beers as world’s largest producer and distributor of rough diamonds.
Legendary, diamonds are forever; campaign, first launched in the United States in the 1940s, which turned the gemstone into a mass consumer product and consolidated the notion that every bride should be married with a diamond ring on her finger. For South Africa, the discovery of diamonds preceded the discovery of gold, and it laid the foundations of a national mining industry that today is among the world’s most sophisticated, well-educated and trained.
It was economics and not politics that led De Beers to reduce its South African profile, shutting down or selling off most its concessions. Today Venetia is its only significant facility, producing about 4.5 million carats per year, accounting for up to 40 percent of the country’s total production.
Many of De Beers historic concessions were purchased by what currently is the country’s other major producer, Petra Diamonds, which also is active in Botswana, Angola and Tanzania.
In 2007 Petra acquired a majority interest in the Koffiefontein mine, and in 2007 a 37 percent interest in Cullinan, which was increased to 74 percent in 2009. In 2010 it purchased a majority interest in the Kimberley underground mine and 2011 a majority interest in the Finsch mine. By 2016 it had obtained a 49.9 percent stake in all of the Kimberley mines.
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