De Beers announced plans to work with artisanal miners in Sierra Leone to ensure their diamonds are ethically sourced and sold at a fair price on its auction platform.
The company has partnered with the Diamond Development Initiative (DDI) on the project, known as GemFair, which is set to launch a pre-pilot phase this month. GemFair will provide tracking technology to artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM), aiming to create a secure and transparent route to market for their diamonds, De Beers said in a statement last week.
“The ASM sector represents a critical income source for many poverty-affected communities,” said De Beers CEO Bruce Cleaver. “However, due to parts of the sector being largely informal and unregulated, it lacks access to established international markets and the ability to derive fair value for participants.”
De Beers hopes the new project will help grow acceptance and prospects for artisanal miners, in addition to creating a new supply source for the company, Cleaver added.
Miners who want to participate in the program need to receive certification from the DDI as well as from GemFair. Participants will then be given a diamond “toolkit,” which includes technology enabling them to digitally track all stones throughout the supply chain.
Once the initiative is operational, GemFair will begin buying stones from participating miners, which will then be sold via De Beers’ Auction Sales channel.
De Beers has not set a date for the pilot’s completion, but hopes to make the first purchase later this year.
Karowe diamond mine located in Botswana has recovered a 472 carat, top light brown gem diamond.
The Rough Diamond will be sold with other exceptional stones recovered this year as part of the first large stone tender in 2018.
In 2018 The Karowe mine will focus on the high value south lobe area which consistently delivers, large high quality diamonds in excess of 10 carats in size.
Gem Diamonds at an elevation of 3,100 meters above sea level, The Letšeng Diamond mine is one of the world’s highest diamond mines.
The Letšeng Diamond Mine is having an extraordinary year this far as the miner continues to recover rough diamonds larger than 100 carats at its mine in Lesotho.
On Wednesday, the company announced it had recovered a 152 carat D colour type IIa diamond, the sixth exceptional large rough diamond so far this year.
Diamond Miner Gem Diamonds has found a 202 carat rough diamond at its Letšeng mine in Lesotho, Sothern Africa. The rough diamond is the latest of seven recovered over 100 carats this year.
The D colour type IIa diamond was recovered when they mine switched to the higher grade K6 section of the main pipe earlier this year.
The Letšeng mine is one of the highest diamond deposits by value in the world with the an average price of $2,397 per carat for the July tender.
