Congo Republic (Zaire): With 18% of world production, this is the second largest producer of diamonds by weight (20 million carats in 1995) after Australia. Only 6% is of high gem quality; another 40% consists of small stones, called near-gem, that are cut in India. Mbuji-Mayi is one of the world's most prolific mines. In recent years production has been about 5 million carats per year.
Namibia: In 1908 a railroad worker found diamonds in the sand dunes near Kolmanskop, South West Africa (now Namibia), then a German colony. In 1909 almost 500,000 carats were produced there, and yields almost tripled in 5 years. The diamonds were small but of high quality. South Africa gained control of Namibia after World War I and sold the diamond deposits to Consolidated Diamond Mines (CDM), which was transferred to De Beers in 1929. In 1994 CDM was reconstituted as Namdeb Diamond Corporation Limited and is now jointly owned by the Namibian government and De Beers. The production, 1,300,000 carats in 1995, is from beach deposits.Other significant African producers and their percentage of world production in 1996:
Angola 1.8%
Ghana 0.7%
Central African Republic 0.6%
Guinea 0.5%
Sierra Leone 0.3%
Zimbabwe 0.2%
No comments:
Post a Comment