Penny: Prosperity Through Partnership Is A Reality For Us

De Beers' future in Africa relies on partnerships in everything from exploration to manufacturing, the company’s managing director, Gareth Penny, said in a mining conference address in Cape Town. “Prosperity through partnership – the theme of this conference is a vision we share, and is a reality for us,” he said.

The company currently has partnerships in 59 Joint Ventures with 42 partner companies worldwide.

Penny emphasized that De Beers had remained focused on core assets, and most importantly had successfully cemented and established a large number of partnerships in the key diamond producing countries. These partnerships existed in both exploration and mining, and recently in sorting and marketing to support local diamond beneficiation.

“Today, De Beers is a reinvigorated company with some of the most talented exploration, mining and marketing people in the world who, following a wide reorganization of the company priorities, are empowered to lead in their clear areas of accountability with the mission to unlock the full value of our company’s leadership position across the diamond pipeline …in a safe and sustainable way,” he said during he speech at the Mining Indaba conference.

De Beers spends $100 million a year on exploration activities and had invested more than this in the past few years to establish a greater presence and activity rate in Angola and the DRC, Penny said.

As an example of a discovery resulting from a partnership, Penny confirmed that the collaboration in the Boteti with African Diamonds in Botswana (known as AK06) resulted in an application to mine a 10 hectare kimberlite, with a grade of 22 cpht at approximately value of $131 per carat.

De Beers has two new mines in South Africa, a marine operation using the Peace in Africa mining vessel and the Voorspoed Mine which is expected to produce a million carats a year once in full production in 2009. This comes after it sold unprofitable mines – and losing some of its production in the process.

Gareth concluded by emphasizing that De Beers, was today focused on ‘driving value’ for its key stakeholders in all areas it operated in, from exploration to jewelry, in a way that aligned De Beers business priorities with national priorities in the countries where it worked.