Mining Intelligence and News
South Africa

Venetia Mine

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Venetia Mine

Location: 74 km SW from Beitbridge, South Africa

Address:

PO Box 668
Musina
South Africa
0900

Contacts:

Additional Resources for Suppliers & Investors

Categories

Overview

Mine TypeUnderground
StatusActive
Commodities
  • Diamond
Mining Method
  • Sub-level caving
Production Start... Lock
Mine Life... Lock
SnapshotVenetia is South Africa’s leading diamond mine. Open pit mining was completed, as scheduled, in 2022 and first production from the underground operation was delivered in June 2023. Venetia is processing lower grade surface stockpiles while the operation transitions to underground. This will continue as the underground production slowly ramps up following the first production blast in mid2023. It is expected to ramp up to steadystate levels of c.4 million carats per annum (Mctpa) production over the next few years.

De Beers has devised an autonomous mining roadmap for its Venetia Underground Mine (VUG) that will – once fully implemented – result in the new $2 billion mine becoming one of the most mechanised and automated mining operations in the world.

Owners

SourceSource
CompanyInterestOwnership
Government of the Republic of Botswana (GRB) 11.1 % Indirect
Ponahalo Holdings Pty Ltd 26 % Indirect
Anglo American plc. 62.9 % Indirect
Anglo American owns 85% of De Beers Group, the world's leading diamond company. The remaining 15% is owned by the Government of the Republic of Botswana (GRB). De Beers Group and its partners produce around one third of the world's rough diamonds, by value.

De Beers’ legal ownership of De Beers Consolidated Mines (DBCM) and its subsidiaries is 74%. For accounting purposes De Beers consolidates 100% of DBCM as it is deemed to control the BEE entity, Ponahalo, which holds the remaining 26%. The Group’s effective interest in DBCM is 85%.

Contractors

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SourceSource

Deposit type

  • Kimberlite

Summary:

The Venetia kimberlite cluster was emplaced into the 2 Ga high grade metamorphic Central Zone of the Limpopo Mobile belt. This belt consists of three tectonic units: Southern Marginal Zone, Central Zone and Northern Marginal Zone, intruded by Proterozoic dolerite dykes and sills. The kimberlite cluster consists of 13 pipes and one external dyke. The current Diamond Resource is represented by four of these pipes, i.e. K01, K02, K03 and K04, totalling 27.3 ha at the current land surface. The remaining kimberlites are all less than 1.0 ha in size, with the majority being less than 0.2 ha in size.

The regional structure within the Central Zone played a significant role in controlling the emplacement of the kimberlites and resulted in a prominent west-north west orientation of the pipe shapes. The kimberlite bodies are characterised by steep-sided and irregular shapes as a result of the fault, joint and fracture orientations. They consist of several texturally distinct phases of kimberlite, varying from several types of volcaniclastic kimberlite lapilli tuffs to several coherent kimberlite types. All three of the main kimberlites (K01, K02 and K03) are monogenetic pipe complexes characterised by multiple kimberlite emplacement events.

Reserves

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Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

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Processing

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Production

CommodityUnits202320222021202020192018201720162015
Diamond k carats  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe  ....  Subscribe1,9224,2494,6023,5173,132
All production numbers are expressed as mineral.

Production Costs

Commodity production costs have not been reported.

Heavy Mobile Equipment

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AV - Autonomous

Personnel

Mine Management

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Mar 15, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Mar 15, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Mar 15, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Mar 15, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Mar 15, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Mar 15, 2024
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Mar 14, 2024

EmployeesContractorsTotal WorkforceYear
...... Subscription required ...... Subscription required ...... Subscription required 2018

Aerial view:

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