Diamond Value Management (DVM) represents the fundamental strategy to maximise the revenue generated in the Metallurgical extraction phase of the diamond pipeline.
A number of principles have been developed to form the basis of the strategy upon which guidelines are set and improvements can be made on the operations and in new designs.
The following elements make up the basis of DVM:
- diamond liberation
- process efficiency
- top cut-off size
- bottom cut-off size
- diamond damage
- diamond control
- waste management.
The overall objective of Diamond Value Management is to recover all the economically recoverable diamonds - intact and without loss due to process efficiency or theft, and with a predetermined top and bottom cut-off size.
The ultimate challenge is for the recovered diamond size frequency distribution to mirror the in-situ curve for each facie in the ore body.