ORANJEMUND - Namdeb chief operations officer Jurgen Jacob is positive the mine has the ability to produce diamonds up to 2050.

He gave this assurance when presenting the diamond mine’s Ramp-Up Plan during an investment conference at the recent Oranjemund Diamond Festival. 

“The new life of mine takes us to 2038, and this buys us time to do the necessary exploration and project development to take us on the remainder of the journey to 2050,” he said.

Citing the entity’s vision, ‘The pride of Namibia’s mining – to 2050 and beyond’, Jacob was adamant that they have more than enough resources left in the ground to support it. 

“The onus is on us to devise clever, cost-effective ways of mining this resource efficiently and productively to sustain these operations,” he said. 

Jacob added that the company has the people and skills to carry out such
operations. Jacob also envisaged using modern systems and artificial intelligence to full effect to ensure maximum productivity.

“The entire northern portions of the mine are waiting for us to come back and find ways of extracting this resource. There are still vast areas of low-grade resources remaining that can be mined, but to do this we need to change our paradigm completely,” he said. 

Referring to his current term in office, Jacob said the last three years have been a rollercoaster ride. 

“At the start, Namdeb was facing a very uncertain future, hence we needed to restructure the business and reduce costs drastically to survive,” he said. 

The senior manager also said one of the biggest decisions taken was to stop accretion and reduce the life of the mine to three years. 

“This decision, as well as the cost-saving initiatives, was the starting point towards a profitable operation,” he added. 

The COO noted that in 2018 it was the intention of Namdeb to close operations within t three years, but the government
came to the rescue by expanding the mine’s lifespan by another 20 years in 2021.

“We do, however, experience a lot of ups-and-downs, operational failures, set-backs, and economic down-streams all these years, but it was our resilience that keep us bouncing back,” he said. 

Jacob added that it is in the DNA of Oranjemund to remain positive as a community and withstand such challenges.

He continued that the mine now needs to extend its off-shore operations by pushing back 1.4 square kilometres into the sea level to secure optimal productivity. 

“At the end of the extended lifespan, we would have 8 million carats of diamonds,” he informed stakeholders. 

The COO also regarded the government’s decision to give Namdeb a remission from 10-5% in royalties to be paid, as a win-win situation. “The N$1.5 billion we are now saving in the process will allow us to recapitalise our business model in the sense that we can explore new exploration opportunities to increase our productivity further.” 

In terms of what the government can gain through this remission, he said the loss of revenue through the royalty remission will in the end earn government approximately N$40 billion in taxes and royalties.

Citing more positive aspects of the Life of Mine extension, Jacob gave the assurance that more than 3 000 employees will have a job for the next 20 years being provided by Namdeb and other contractors operating at the mine. 

“Due to this positive initiative, we were able to redeploy all the workers from our recently closed Deberas mine,” he added. 

In terms of upcoming economic opportunities, Jacob said more than 300 Hillux bakkies have to be converted from petrol to electric engines in the new future. 

“Housing is another challenge we are facing as we want to employ more people, but have no accommodation for them,” he said. 

The COO also said many local procurement opportunities will now become available while there is a golden opportunity to manufacture bricks from sand or clay which is readily available at the diamond mining sites. 

“I urge property developers and banks to explore the opportunity of building
houses,” he added. 

Jacob said it is Namdeb’s wish that when the day comes for the last diamond to be mined, the Oranjemund Town Council and other stakeholders will be in a position to take full control of the town through the successful transfer of properties and transition of services like health and education.