Canadile Partner Issues Diamond Buying Warning
December 05, 10(IDEX Online News) - Core Mining SA, a 50 percent shareholder of Canadile Miners, said that its joint venture partner took control of the company’s entire diamond stockpile and warned that it will “exercise its full rights by any means possible on any Canadile Miners’ diamonds commercialized or misappropriated.”
Core Mining said in an open letter that its partner, state owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC), “made a series of unilateral moves by taking over the effective running of the Canadile mining operations, excluding Canadile management from daily operations and control, blocking access of Core Mining shareholders to the country and by appropriating the entire diamond stock of Canadile Miners.”
Core Mining filed an urgent application to a Harare court to prevent Canadile’s diamond stockpile to be sold Core Mining’s approval.
The Johannesburg-based company said that it received repeated evidence that prospective diamond buyers have been approached with specific offers for Canadile diamonds. “This would not only be in breach of pending KP [Kimberley Process] resolutions, but would also be a clear breach of Core Mining’s ownership rights to the existing and future diamond stockpile,” the company said.
In response, the company issued “a formal warning to all relevant parties in the diamond sector to exercise maximum caution on the provenance of Marange diamonds, as Core Mining will exercise its full rights by any means possible on any Canadile Miners’ diamonds commercialized or misappropriated at this specific juncture.”
Six ZMDC and Canadile executives were arrested in November for allegedly making false investment claims to obtain their diamond mining license. IDEX Online recently learned that rough diamonds mined by Made and Canadile at the Marange diamond concessions were offered to diamond buyers. While the export status of the goods is unclear, the country was seeking bids for the goods.
The series of events indicate a concentrated effort to drive Core Mining out of Zimbabwe and away from its diamond claims in the country.
The Marange diamond fields of Zimbabwe. Canadile's diamond concessions are on the right
Photo: Google Earth