Diamond producer De Beers, a division of Anglo America, has inked three new contracts with Angola to support diamond processing in the nation while looking for new business opportunities, Reuters reported citing the company’s CEO announcement on Tuesday.
The agreements, which include one with the state-owned diamond company Endiama of Angola, expand upon exploration contracts signed in 2022 when De Beers made its first visit back to the nation since departing in 2012.
“We believe this is a real step forward in our co-operation,” the company’s CEO, Al Cook said during a signing ceremony on the sidelines of an African mining indaba in Cape Town.
Using knowledge gained by De Beers in Botswana, one agreement with Sodiam, the national diamond trading company of Angola, aimed to guarantee partners utilised the best procedures for sorting and processing diamonds in Angola.
The signing ceremony was attended by the respective mining ministers of Botswana and Angola, two of Africa’s leading producers of diamonds.
In another contract, improving semi-industrial mining to ensure that it is “done in the right way” was the focus, and in the third, Endiama’s technology was used to review Angola’s kimberlite potential and find new commercial opportunities.
“We’re enormously excited about the potential in Angola and what we are delighted about is working with the Angolan government to simultaneously address the potential under the ground in Angola, but to turn it into unlimited potential over the ground for the people of Angola,” the company’s CEO said.
