De Beers Group announced yesterday the signing of two Mineral Investment Contracts (MICs) with the Government of Angola for licence areas in north-eastern Angola. Both contracts formalize the award and exercise of mineral rights over a period of 35 years each, allowing De Beers Group to explore and mine diamonds in the southern African country.
Each concession area will be held by a separate new joint venture company formed by De Beers Group and Endiama, Angola’s state-owned diamond company.
This is another win for Angola’s diamond industry that has been the subject of substantive reforms over the past years to attract investors. In October last year, Angola’s Ministry of Mineral Resources, Petroleum & Gas and Endiama had already signed a MIC with Rio Tinto for the Chiri diamond concession in the Lunda Norte Province in northern Angola, at the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
As Angola pursues its economic diversification strategy, its mining and minerals industry offer attractive opportunities to industrialise the country while generating jobs. Angola is already the world’s sixth largest diamond producer and diamonds represent its second biggest source of export earnings after oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
In 2021, the country produced 9.4m carats of diamonds worth over $1.5bn, according to data from its Central Bank. The sector generated Kz. 72bn for the government, or some $175m.
