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De Beers closes his Voorspoed mine after failing to find a suitable buyer for the operation of 700,000 carats a year, but the Mineral Resources Department stepped in to find a buyer by the end of the month. ;August.
De Beers used the services of Standard Bank to help sell the open pit near Kroonstad in the Free State and letters were sent to more than 50 parties, including the operators of other diamond mines in South Africa. However, none of them could meet the criteria established by De Beers to not only have the financial ability to manage Voorspoed, but also to invest in the capital to expand the pit. and add five more years of life.
De Beers also wanted a buyer with the technical ability, credentials and reputation to take control of the mine.
"None of the four final companies we met with met all the criteria we set, so we decided to close Voorspoed," said Philip Barton, CEO of De Beers Consolidated Mines. , the South African subsidiary of De Beers.
The mine has 386 employees and 500 contractors. Minister of Mineral Resources Gwede Mantashe has spoken out against mine closures and maintenance and upkeep operations. In this context, discussions with the department's general manager, Thabo Mokoena, resulted in an agreement that the regulator would conduct a process to "identify and propose" an operator by the end of the month of April. ;August.
by the department should meet the criteria set by De Beers. When the mine was opened in 2008, De Beers gave it a life of exactly 10 years. There was a small expansion of the pit that would extend his life from three to five years, but De Beers said it was not a financially viable project given the overhead and cost base of the company. 39, company
. The closure process will begin, leaving De Beers just the Venetia mine in Limpopo, which the company is turning into an underground mine from an open pit mine, at a cost of $ 2 billion.
seccombea @ businesslive.co.za
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