Namdeb’s Mining Area 1 comprises coastal raised beaches over a distance of about 100 km north of Oranjemund to Chameis Bay in Namibia.
After nearly a century of mining, the Namibian onshore deposits are dwindling. Future mining is focused on offshore diamond deposits.
For the last two decades, De Beers has increased geological research and prospecting in marine environments, leading to a successful marine diamond mining operation.
In addition, the application of innovative beach accretion strategies has enabled Namdeb to extend its land operations in Mining Area 1 and boost production substantially.
Background
The world’s most spectacular known gem quality alluvial diamond deposits are found along the Namib Desert coast of Namibia.
The deposits range in age from contemporary to 40 million years.
Since the initial discovery of diamonds in Namibia in 1908, this particular regional deposit has yielded well over 100 million carats of gem quality diamonds.
The ore body was delineated following the discovery of diamonds north of the Orange River mouth in 1928. The area consists of raised beaches over a distance of approximately 100km north of Oranjemund, to Chameis Bay along the coastline.
Carats per year
Up to 300,000 carats are mined annually.
Mining and processes
There are three processes in mining – stripping, bed rock cleaning, and loading and hauling. Conventional stripping of waste material is done with articulated dump trucks and hydraulic excavators.
Bedrock cleaning is facilitated by bulk dosing followed by vacuum cleaning units (transvacs). All diamondiferous material is then loaded and hauled with ridged frame trucks to the processing plants.
At the processing plants the material is crushed, scrubbed, washed and diamondiferous material is separated by means of dense media separation (DMS).
At the final recovery the DMS concentrates are further beneficiated by means of magnetic separation and x-ray sorting technology.
The final stage is hand sorting in the sort house before exportation for valuation.
Health and safety
All Namdeb operations retained 5-Star “platinum” Nosa grading and Noscar status.
Namdeb also recorded six million fatality-free shifts, which is a remarkable achievement for an operation of its size and age.
Namdeb obtained OHSAS 18001 and retained ISO 14001 certification in 2007. The Namdeb LTIFR to end October 2008: 0.21.
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