The recently ended annual Botswana Resource Sector Conference, which was convened in the capital, Gaborone, saw several speakers making presentations on diamond mining and other mining sectors. Among the speakers was James Allan, the director of a corporate finance firm, Allan Hochreiter. In his presentation, Allan estimated that diamond prices will return to 2008 levels by end of 2010 owing to the global economic recovery and strong demand from emerging markets such as China and India. He also said that the two Asian countries will be major players in the diamond market in the next two decades. Rough & Polished’s Mathew Nyaungwa caught up with Allan on the sidelines of the conference to find out more on his presentation. Below are the excerpts.
Alexander Boguslavsky, General Manager of the Prioksky Nonferrous Metals Plant, which celebrated its 20th anniversary from the date of its first output, gave the following interview to Rough&Polished.
Nizhne-Lenskoye, a public company established in 1994, is engaged in mining natural diamonds in Eastern Siberia (Yakutia). It is the first diamond-mining enterprise in Yakutia which is independent of ALROSA Group. The company’s only shareholder is the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) represented by its Ministry for Property Relations. Nizhne-Lenskoye produces about $100 million worth of diamonds a year. Vladimir Kychkin, CEO of Nizhne-Lenskoye, answers the questions of Rough&Polished.Diamond exploration company Tawana Resources, which has interests in Botswana, South Africa and Australia recently said that it had completed the placement of 66 million shares at 1 cent per share to raise 660 000 AUD (593 000 USD).
The ASX-listed company said the new capital raised would be used to fund its exploration programmes, for the review of new projects and for general working capital purposes.
In Botswana, Tawana is in a joint venture with Firestone Diamonds working on the Orapa project.
It said last April that no further diamond recoveries or grades of any interest were made at the Orapa BK24 although the material sampled was too diluted.
Tawana also noted that it had been pursuing the possibility of a joint venture partner to further evaluate the Kareevlei Wes tenement, in South Africa.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Rough&Polished from Namibia
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