Diamond miner, Anjin sings the blues

Published: 10 March 2014

Diamond miner, Anjin Investments says it is struggling to keep its operations running due to falling ore grades and recoveries at its concession in the Marange fields.

A joint venture between China's Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Company Limited and the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation the firm was once rated as the world's biggest diamond producer. Anjin director Munyaradzi Machacha said the company was literally in "survival mode."

"Right now the company is in survival mode. We are really in serious financial problems and our primary objective at the moment is to make sure that the company survives," he said.

"Our resources have dwindled, our revenues are down, the ore we are mining we are recovering the low grade diamonds which are not fetching much on the market in terms of prices, our prices are probably the lowest in the Marange area."

Production figures for last year could not be immediately ascertained. Finance manager Shingirai Manyeruke said last year the company only managed to conduct two auctions. He said the company hoped to return to financial stability if it is granted additional concessions to mine from.

"Last year, we actually struggled to sell diamonds. In the second half of 2013 we only managed to do a major sale in December and what it means is we had to look for sources of funds so that we keep operations going and we had to even borrow to keep the operations going. We are in the survival mode; we have not even reached the stage where we can guarantee pay days because of those financial issues that are bedeviling the company.

"Regarding the dwindling of the resource, engagements have been made with the relevant authorities they have been appraised of the situation and we await for decisions so that at least we get more land to do exploration, one good thing about Anjin is that in terms of productive capacity it is there, it is solid but what is lacking is the ore to process," said Manyeruke.

Anjin has produced 7, 8 million carats of diamonds since it commenced operations in 2010 while it has sold 6, 8 million carats to date. At peak production in 2011, the company produced 350 000 carats. It has capacity to process 12 000 tonnes of ore per day.

The company has invested more than $400 million into its mining operations in Zimbabwe.

- New Ziana

Tags: Diamonds,