Mining company Octéa Diamond Group, a private company owned by Beny Steinmetz Group (BSGR), was officially launched at a gala event at the group’s flagship Koidu diamond mine, in Sierra Leone’s Kono district.

Gem Diamonds has initiated a review of its capital investment plans and said it might delay projects in Lesotho and Botswana in order to protect the company’s balance sheet in light of continued economic uncertainty.

Botswana is setting out to lower the fiscal burden on resources investors in a charm offensive that separates it from the mining jurisdictions that are currently looking to increase mining taxes.

Diversified miner Xstrata Alloys was progressing the ramp-up of its Helena chrome mine, in Mpumalanga, with the development of a south decline underground, the company said.

A consortium comprising commodities trader Glencore and South African businessperson Cyril Ramaphosa’s Lexshell 849 has increased its shareholding in black economic-empowered Optimum Coal to just over 70%.

Exploration and development company Ncondezi Coal has signed a framework agreement with Mozambique’s Ministry of Mineral Resources for its 4.7-billion-ton Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant Ncondezi coal project, in the Tete province.

The South African diamond industry faces serious challenges upstream and downstream, where job creation, wealth creation and the beneficiation of raw diamonds are not concerns for regulatory authorities, says diamond polishing company African Romance CEO Mohseen Moosa.

The beneficiation of diamonds locally is not only proving a profitable business but also has the indirect benefit of keeping in place the diamond tender system, which the company favours, says Trans Hex CEO Llewellyn Delport.

With positive feasibility studies in hand, companies aim to start building at least three new diamond mines in Canada by the third-quarter of next year, at a combined cost of around $3.4 billion.

If South Africa was to realistically achieve the objective of lowering its carbon emissions, the southern Karoo’s shale gas deposits had to be thoroughly investigated, Econometrix MD Rob Jeffrey said on Tuesday.

Move over Mark Zuckerberg. Russia’s Mikhail Prokhorov, who Forbes ranks as the 58th richest person globally, has filed a prospectus to list his Intergeo MMC in Toronto, announcing it the day before Facebook goes public.

The Western Australian government on Thursday reported that it would be conducting a review on its royalty system over the next three years.