OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday
AFRICAN diamond producer Namibian Minerals Company (Namco) says South Africa’s latest development in underwater diamond technology, the MV Ya Toivo, has proved “extremely” successful in recovering the precious stone off the Namibian coast.
Designed by Namco’s engineers and built in South Africa, the R42m diamond mining ship set sail earlier this month to extract diamonds off the Namibian coast, the company said.
The ship features a huge crawler with a pump attached to it. The pump acts as a vacuum cleaner and sucks diamonds off ancient beaches and old river beds that now lie underwater.
Once lowered the crawler’s electronic sensors inform the vessel of its whereabouts at all times. The operator uses a joystick to manoeuvre the crawler and its suction arm on the seabed.
“While pumping sea bed materials for the first time this week, Nam 2 (the crawler) mined uninterrupted for a period of 25 hours, clearing approximately 4000 square metres…the first diamonds were picked this morning and processing will continue through the weekend,” Namco’s chief executive Alastair Holberton said.
The ship, which took two years to modify and complete, is manned by 70 crewmen, who work on a 28-day cycle.
Namco has 18000 square kilometres of diamond concessions and a fleet of five vessels. Namibia is the world’s fifth largest diamond producer.