The Sunday Mail
Government has directed all companies mining in the Chiadzwa diamond fields in Manicaland to immediately invest in underground mining or risk losing their operating licences.
The companies have been trying to pressure Government to give them new concessions, ostensibly because they have exhausted alluvial resources in their allocated areas.
Alluvial (surface/open cast) mining is cheaper than underground mining.
However, Government wants the seven miners in Chiadzwa to invest in equipment to go underground.
Last year, Mbada Diamonds, Anjin Investments, Marange Resources, Diamond Mining Company, Kusena, Jinan Mining (Private) Limited and Gye Nyame collectively put less than US$200 million into Government coffers.
Other diamond producing countries like Namibia and Botswana have just one diamond miner each and are generating revenues of around US$1 billion annually.
This has seen Government pushing for a merger of all diamond mining operations in Zimbabwe, starting with Marange Resources, Gye Nyame and Kusena. Mbada Diamonds says it has already started investing in exploration of kimberlite deposits.
A fortnight ago, Mines Minister Walter Chidhakwa told the firms to “go underground or get out of Chiadzwa”.
And last week he told The Sunday Mail: “We cannot say our alluvial diamond deposits have run out because we first need our teams of geologists or geomologists to carry out extensive exploration of the whole area currently being mined.
“We need to go through records of the mining houses so that we will be able to quantify the stones they have mined over the past years.
“The message to them is they should immediately invest in underground mining using the proceeds from the open cast mining they were carrying over the past years.
“We are not going to give any mining firm a new claim in Chiadzwa. The message is very simple for them it is either you go underground or go out of Chiadzwa if you fail.”
Minister Chidakwa said preliminary findings showed the existence of rich kimberlitic pipes.
Forecasts by leading international diamond experts project that rough diamonds from Chiadzwa can comprise 25 percent of global supply by volume until 2018.
