Zimbabwe’s second-largest diamond miner, Murowa Diamonds, is expecting demand to bounce back after the coronavirus pandemic forced the parent company, RioZim to stop sales last March.
The global travel restrictions to curb the spreading of the coronavirus has further weakened demand and prices of diamonds.
“It has in fact picked up with a vengeance in some parts of the world,” RioZim spokesperson Wilson Gwatiringa was quoted by Bloomberg as saying.
“As a result, we expect an imminent bounce back in the demand for rough diamonds.”
He said they had been stockpiling production from Murowa Diamonds since the beginning of the pandemic.
RioZim had also suspended growth projects although RioZim was now considering a two-phase expansion to boost diamond output.
Gwatiringa said the first phase would extend the life of the Murowa mine by four years from the current 14 months at a cost of $52 million.
The second $400 million phase, which was under consideration, would see the construction of Zimbabwe’s largest underground diamond mine.
This, he said, would increase production to 2.5 million carats, while the life of the operation would also be extended by at least another 10 years.
Murowa recorded a 7% drop in production to 685 000 carats in 2019 from 740 244 carats produced in the comparative period in 2018.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
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