Zim Seeks to Produce 500 000 Ct Per Month By End of Year

Cape Town: Zimbabwe is planning to produce 500 000 carats per month in Marange by end of this year, a government official has said.

Mines minister Walter Chidhakwa told Rough & Polished on the side-lines of the Investing in African Mining Indaba in Cape Town that the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) was working flat out to boost equipment availability from the current 35 percent to about 85 percent. This, he said, would help boost output.

“We have been having discussions since the beginning of January and the desire is to achieve 500 000 carats per month. If we can increase equipment availability to [85 percent] and then we upgrade the resource into a reserve to what we think we can upgrade it then by the middle of the year we should get to about at least 300 000 to 400 000 carats per month and I think 500 000 carts will come at the end of the year,” he said.

Diamond output in Marange had been on a downward trajectory since the forced consolidation of mining early last year. ZCDC produced about 900,000 carats last year from peak figures of 12 million carats annually.

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