De Beers offers Namibia bigger slice
March 14, 2007
Windhoek - De Beers was in talks with Namibia to sell a bigger stake in a sea floor mining joint venture to the government, the world's biggest diamond company said this week.
The chairman of De Beers's marine mining unit, Rob Smart, did not give further details in a speech in Windhoek late on Monday.
De Beers owns 70 percent of a venture that mines diamonds off Namibia's coast, while the government owns the rest.
The diamonds produced by the venture are among the best quality in the world.
While Namibia is the only place where the precious stones are mined from the sea floor, De Beers is planning a similar operation in South Africa. De Beers is 45 percent owned by Anglo American, 40 percent by the Oppenheimer family and 15 percent by Botswana's government.
More than 2 million carats of De Beers's record 51 million carat production last year was from Namibia. Botswana yielded 34.2 million carats. - Bloomberg
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