Namibia will intensify its mining of diamonds in the coming years. As a sequel to this drive, five African commercial banks have come to an understanding to invest to US$375 million in building a state-of-the-art new diamond mining vessel for a subsidiary of De Beers. The banks in the fray are Nedbank Namibia, RMB Namibia, Standard Bank, ABSA and Bank Windhoek. They together will chip in 80% of the cost of the ship, which is billed as the world’s largest diamond mining ship. A 50-50 joint venture company between De Beers and the government of Namibia -Debmarine Namibia –will put in the remaining 20% of the cost of the project, which will work out at US$94 million. Namibia is known for its high-quality diamond deposits, which is also a major foreign exchange earner.
The Debmarine Namibia joint venture’s fleet, which will become seventh in its fleet, is designed to mine high-quality diamonds from the ocean floor. It will be fitted with most modern hi-tech surveying equipment. The ship to be named as AMV3 will have the capacity to mine 500,000 carats of diamonds from 2022. Once the mining capacity is achieved, it is expected to contribute US$137.64 million a year in taxes and royalties to the government in the first five years of production. Nedbank Namibia will be the lead bank in consortium of bankers and will contribute 40% of the financing. Apart from that, the bank will help currency hedging for the deal, which is billed as one of the largest investments happening in the country in the recent past. Uranium and diamonds mining and their trading contributed 14% of Namibia’s gross domestic product in 2018, according to Namibia’s Chamber of Mines. De Beers own rights to mine more than 3,000 square miles of the Namibian seafloor, which was purchased in 1991. Till date, it has explored only 3 percent of that area. In 2016, Debmarine Namibia mined 1.2 million carats-worth of diamonds, which is two-thirds of Namibia’s total haul.
