DIAMONDS
A primary crusher at a processing plant at Venetia Mine, South Africa.
DIAMOND BENEFICIATION De Beers drives agenda By Nelendhre Moodley
T
he diamond industry is experiencing a revival with an increased appetite coming from consumers for natural diamond jewellery. SA Mining recently caught up with executive vice president of diamond trading at De Beers Group, Paul Rowley, to chat about the measures in place to grow the diamond beneficiation pipeline.
WHAT IS DE BEERS’S STRATEGY REGARDING DIAMOND BENEFICIATION FOR AFRICA?
Our focus at De Beers Group is on finding the best ways to carry out our business so that it supports our producer country partners with their broader socioeconomic objectives. In each of the producer countries – Botswana, Namibia and South Africa – there is a desire from governments to access as much of the value-adding processes beyond mining in the diamond supply chain in-country as possible to support government developmental objectives. We have a direct selling relationship with businesses that undertake cutting and polishing of diamonds (our sightholders), so we are able to create incentives for them to set up factories in diamond-producing countries through our supply mechanisms. With the supply of diamonds being finite,
18
SA MINING
JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2022
we can create these incentives by setting aside a certain share of production so that it is only sold to those businesses with factories in-country for the purposes of supporting local beneficiation. By supplying the larger goods with higher average price through this supply channel, we look to establish an economically sustainable approach, despite the competition from lower labour cost centres. Beyond this focus on supporting the establishment of diamond cutting and polishing in-country, we also support beneficiation (downstream value addition) more broadly through a range of other activities in-country. These include diamond sorting and valuation, rough diamond sales, jewellery design (through our Shining Light Awards), and diamond retail (with the establishment of De Beers Forevermark points of sale). We continue to engage with government partners to understand their continuing socioeconomic objectives and to work out the best ways that we can support these goals in a commercially sustainable manner. It’s also noteworthy that embedded within our commercial strategy is our Building Forever sustainability framework. This has four pillars (Leading Ethical Practices, Partnering For Thriving Communities, Protecting The Natural World, and Accelerating
www.samining.co.za
Equal Opportunity). Each of these is a key consideration in all our commercial activities, and is focused on meeting the needs of our producer country partners.
HOW HAS COVID-19 IMPACTED ON THIS STRATEGY?
The pandemic has not changed our beneficiation strategy – rather it has had a much wider impact on the industry as a whole. For a period in 2020 there was effectively a complete standstill across the supply chain, and this meant that operations around the world in all parts of the pipeline were negatively impacted, and the cutting and polishing operations in producer countries were no exception. However, as the situation around the globe has evolved in relation to the pandemic, there has been an overall improvement in all areas. While there continue to be challenges related to the pandemic, and as there are waves of infections that can lead to specific impacts in different geographies, overall the strong recovery in consumer demand for diamonds coupled with the world’s improved ability to cope with the issues presented by the pandemic have led to things returning to a much improved situation.
