The Director of Mining Operations and Management of Shares of the National Diamond Company of Angola (Endiama), Miguel Vemba, highlighted the country's potential, stressing that currently more than 90 percent of reserves are in primary deposits.
The same official, who was speaking to the press on the sidelines of the 10th UNESCO African Engineering Week & African Engineering Conference, which runs until Friday in Luanda, considered it necessary to find efficient mechanisms to recover the value of these reserves, citing the use of artificial intelligence.
“Only with this new technology will we be able to considerably increase our reserves, reducing the time it takes to carry out studies”, he said, highlighting that new technologies, with higher capacity equipment, can also facilitate operations.
Miguel Vemba also announced that Endiama may move forward with its own production next year, no longer relying solely on its shareholdings, with two projects in the prospecting phase.
These are two projects: Luachimba, which is at a very advanced stage and should start pilot production in 2025, and Xamacanda, which also has “a lot of potential” and is still in the study and information gathering phase, he said.
“Luachimba is already well advanced and, in 2025, we will see the return to our own production, a real Endiama project, this is just the first sign we are giving. It started with Luachimba, Xamacanda is the second project, the intention is to continue developing these projects and not simply depend on our participation”, he stressed.
Angola is the world’s fourth largest producer of rough diamonds, with an industrial production of 9.8 million carats of diamonds in 2023, coming from the provinces of Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Bié, Cuanza Sul and Malanje.
In the first half of this year, the country produced 5.6 million carats, an increase of 36 percent compared to the same period in 2023, when it recorded a total production of 4.1 million carats.
