Key points
- Namco chartered the 2,500-ton MV Zacharius, named after Zacharius Lewala who discovered Namibia’s first diamond in 1908, under a five-year charter with a purchase option.
- The vessel is scheduled to arrive in Cape Town, South Africa, later this month and will conduct a two-month geophysical survey gathering about 4,000 line kilometres of seismics.
- Wirth and Namco’s engineering team jointly designed a 50-ton exploration tool that operates in water depths up to 250 metres, at an estimated capital cost of $5-million (U.S.) and annual operating costs of $4.5-million (U.S.).
- Namco’s diamond resources currently exceed 3.5 million carats, and the company reported nine-month earnings of $16-million (U.S.), or 42 U.S. cents per share, for the period ended Sept. 30, 1999.
Namibian Minerals (Namco) has chartered a new vessel for further exploration of its Namibian ocean diamond concessions. The exploration program, using the latest advances in marine technology, is scheduled to start in the third quarter of this year.
The objective of the program is to expand diamond resources to support
forward mine planning. Exploration will focus on areas surrounding the current mining licences and on the re-evaluation of sampling results from the recently acquired Ocean Diamond Mining Ltd.
A five-year charter with a purchase option has been agreed on MV Zacharius, named after Zacharius Lewala, who discovered the first diamond in Namibia in 1908. The 2,500-ton vessel, with a dynamic positioning system, is scheduled to arrive in Cape Town, South Africa, later this month. She will conduct a two-month geophysical survey, gathering approximately 4,000 line kilometres of seismics, before being fitted with Namco’s exploration tool, and processing equipment.
The 50-ton exploration tool has been jointly designed by Wirth and Namco’s engineering team. Wirth is the German pioneer of seabed extraction drilling technology, having developed four diamond drilling systems for De Beers Marine since 1990. The tool is designed to operate in water depths of up to 250 metres, to clear 10 five-square-metre samples per day in two bites and to work in sediments up to 12 metres thick. Its unique characteristics include hydraulic power and control systems fitted inside the tool, and a soft landing system to enable operation in a wider range of sea conditions. The estimated capital cost of $5-million (U.S.) includes tool construction, software, launch and recovery equipment, diamond processing plant and vessel modifications. Operating costs are estimated at $4.5-million (U.S.) per year.
Namco’s chairman and chief executive officer, Alastair Holberton, said: “The Zacharius gives us a relatively fast and low cost means of assessing the seabed for mineralization and minability. We estimate it drops our cost per sample by 90 per cent, compared with our 1996 exploration program.”
Namco is a leading ocean diamond producer operating off the coast of
Namibia using proprietary marine mining technology. Current diamond resources exceed 3.5 million carats. Earnings for the nine months ended Sept. 30, 1999, were $16-million (U.S.), 42 U.S. cents per share. The company paid its first dividend in 1999. Full-year results will be announced later this month.
