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pipeline since 2021, is managed as a joint venture between Rio Tinto (75%) and the state diamond company Endiama (25%).
Rio Tinto has invited important figures of the sector to guarantee their presence in this province producer of diamonds on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. The president of Rio Tinto Angola, Canga Xiaquivuila, has been in charge since April and is a respected figure within the Angolan mining sector. For more than ten years, Xiaquivuila has worked for the Angolan branch of the British diamond colossal De Beers before being appointed by the Angolan president João Lourenço head of the Geological Institute of Angola (IGEO). He graduated in geology at the University of Kiev and speaks five languages including French and Russian. The director of the Chiri project, Paul Hundt, also worked for De Beers with Xiaquivuila in the mining concession of Lucapa (Lunda-Norte)
between 2011 and 2012.
This was shortly before De Beers, a branch of Anglo American, left the country following a dispute with the management of the former president José Eduardo Dos Santos. Other former employees of De Beers also joined the company, including the Angolan geologist Artur Liumba, who worked with the two geologists in Lucapa, as well as in Botswana and South Africa. Rio Tinto has also devised a local strategy to put down more roots in the area. Besides geologists, the mining company wants to hire employees to facilitate relations with the Tchokwé community who live in the region.
The situation in Saurimo, capital of Lunda-Sul, has worsened over the last two months. The protests which asked for greater independence for the province, instigated by the independence fighter Chokwe Jota, Filipe Malakito, have been strongly supressed by Angolan police.
Endiama and Rio Tinto
keep a watchful eye on these developments.
New sources of production growth
Rio Tinto, whose diamond division is led by Sinead Kaufman in Australia, currently owns one diamond mine, in the Territories of Northwest Canada. The site of Diavik, inaugurated in 2003, produces between 3.5 and 5 million carats a year, making the Anglo- Australian company the third world producer of diamonds. It is still very far behind De Beers and the Russian colossal Alrosa, which each extracted approximately 32 million carats in 2022.
Since the Angolan mine of Rio Tinto in Australia closed in November 2020, the company has been in search of new sources of production growth. Angola is one of its goals. The Country is the sixth world producer of diamonds (between 6 and 8 million carats each year), thanks to the mine of Catoca, also situated in Lunda Sul.
Alrosa owns a 41% stake in the mine, which it is nevertheless trying to sell.
DE BEERS RIPRENDE LE VENDITE ONLINE DEL GREZZO
De Beers riprenderà a breve i suoi eventi di vendita di diamanti grezzi, per la prima volta dallo scorso settembre.
La società mineraria ha annullato le sue aste online – che rappresentano tutte le vendite non-Sightholder – durante il suo nono e decimo ciclo di vendita, a causa del crollo della domanda a livello globale. Ora sta reintroducendo queste vendite, anche se la maggior parte dei beni verrà venduta attraverso un nuovo canale chiamato Offerta, che funzionerà più come una gara d'appalto che come un'asta.
Al Cook, amministratore delegato, disse all'epoca che De Beers stava sospendendo le aste per aiutare a "ristabilire l'equilibrio tra domanda e offerta all'ingrosso".
I primi eventi di vendita del
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