Gem Diamonds unveils cost-savings plan for Lesotho mine
Revised life-of-mine plan will reduce total waste stripping by 65.8 million tonnes, leading to an estimated cost saving of $180 million.
Botswana’s economy contracted by the most since the peak of the pandemic in early 2020, after diamond production plunged.
Gross domestic product shrank an annual 5.3% in the first quarter, compared with growth of 1.9% in the prior three months.
The downturn was primarily influenced by a decrease in real value added of the diamond traders and mining & quarrying industries of 46.8% and 24.8% respectively, Statistics Botswana said in a report Friday.
Botswana is the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds by value, with the revenues making up the bulk of the southern African country’s budget receipts. The decline is likely to make meeting its fiscal targets for this year difficult. The central bank already warned last week that the government would probably miss its economic growth forecast of 4.2% because of weaker mining output.
The global diamond industry almost came to a standstill in the second half of last year as De Beers and Russia’s Alrosa PJSC — the two biggest miners — all but stopped supplies in a desperate attempt to stem a slump in prices. That hit earnings at De Beers, which mines more than three-quarters of its diamonds in Botswana.
Earlier this year De Beers said it expects any recovery in the beleaguered diamond market to be slow and gradual as the industry continues to suffer from weak economic growth in key markets such as China and the US.
(By Monique Vanek)
Read More: De Beers ditches lab-grown diamonds as it looks beyond Anglo
Comments
Charles Butcher
This is too be expected with the EVIL empire (usa) the clasical biblical “beast” putting pressure on countries not to trade with Russia. Russia is the only country to stand up and say NO to the continue US hegemony (strange that the christian world can’t see the demon in their midst)