De Beers is expecting to obtain a diamond concession to explore in Angola by the end of this year, the chairman of the group Philippe Mellier said in London cited by the international press.
“We hope to have news about exploration licenses before the end of the year and we are in contact with the Angolan government to discuss the matter,” Mellier said. De Beers is also in talks with the Indian government for diamond exploration in the centre and north of the country.
Angola is the world's fourth-largest diamond producer by value, and sixth by volume.Mellier also said to Idex Online that sentiment was strong at the Hong Kong International Jewellry Show earlier in March. "The Hong Kong show was pretty good, it was better than last year. We saw Chinese, Indians, Japanese were buying in good numbers," he said.
"Expectations were high, because the Chinese New Year was good and the first feedback I am getting is that it was in line with expectations or even better.” He forecasted a 4.0 to 4.5 percent growth in polished diamond prices in 2014.
De Beers had completed an extensive exploration program on its Lunda Northeast concession from 2005 to 2012, where 118 kimberlite pipes were discovered. Of these, 75 were tested for diamond grade, leading to the resource evaluation and conceptual study of the Mulepe-1 deposit, which concluded that a stand-alone deposit was not economic under current assumptions. “Consequently, the decision was taken to relinquish the Lunda NE concession,” Group’s head of media relations Lynette Gould said to Rough&Polished in a recent interview.
The De Beers group, which is 15 percent owned by government of Botswana and the remainder is in the hands of the Anglo American group, produced over 31 million carats of diamonds in 2013 from mines in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Canada.
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