Giant mining vessels: how high-quality gems are exploited from the sea 

Credit: De Beers

Diamonds were first discovered offshore Namibia in the 1960s. Over the years, coastal waters have produced around 95 million carats, including around 12 million from deepwater marine mining.

While in the past many ingenious methods have been deployed to liberate the diamonds from the seafloor, today the process is highly sophisticated and fully automated.

First, to find the most lucrative areas to mine, the seabed is scanned using unmanned and remotely operated vehicles equipped with geophysical mapping technology. This is followed by sampling to determine a reserve’s inventory.

The findings, along with other parameters, form the basis of a mine plan, which the company says “ensure the diamonds identified are brought to the surface in the safest and most sustainable, and economic way.”

To remove the precious gems, a horizontal crawler is attached to one of the company’s vessels, which then moves along the specific area dredging up the seabed.

Different mining technologies are deployed to suit different ground conditions. These include an airlift-drill technology, which uses a 6.8m-diameter drill bit working in overlapping circles on the sea floor, and a crawler, which uses a 280-tonne track-mounted crawler to dredge the sea floor.

Four of the production vessels use the airlift-drill, whilst only one vessel – Mafuta – uses the crawler.

Up to 60 tonnes of sediment are lifted up to the vessel through a giant pipe each hour. Aboard the ship, the sediment is then washed and sifted into increasingly smaller stones, using a series of vibrating racks and rotating drums that crush rocks.

Sediment that is non-diamond bearing is discarded back to the ocean floor. Any diamonds that are found are sealed in small barcoded containers and flown, three times a week, by helicopter to vaults ashore.

To remove the precious gems, a horizontal crawler is attached to one of the company’s vessels

Construction of the SS Nujoma.

Credit: De Beers

The refitting work to be completed by Wärtsilä, for example, will extend the lifetime of the vessel

The company operates five diamond mining vessels: the Debmar Atlantic, Debmar Pacific, Gariep, Grand Banks and Mafuta.

Earlier this year, Debmarine unveiled the SS Nujoma, a $157m deepwater diamond exploration and sampling vessel named after former Namibian president Sam Nujoma. At the ship’s christening in June, he declared: “The future of marine diamond mining is here, and it’s Namibian.”

As the entire mining process is technology driven, maintaining the fleet and making it as efficient as possible is of the upmost importance.

The refitting work to be completed by Wärtsilä, for example, will extend the lifetime of the vessel, as well as reduce its specific fuel oil consumption. The new equipment is also said to be more reliable and needs less maintenance, reducing disruptions in operations.

In 2017, De Beers Marine and Wärtsilä signed a similar agreement to outfit new Wärtsilä gensets to the company’s other diamond mining vessels, Grand Banks and Debmar Atlantic. The company is also currently carrying out an engine control system upgrade project on the Mafuta vessel.

Delivery of the company’s new Kleven Verft AS vessel is expected in 2021.

Credit: Faiz Zaki / Shutterstock.com

However, while the long-term effects of land mining are widely known, the impact of offshore mining is much less understood.

Debmarine claims rehabilitation of mined marine environments occurs naturally, and recolonisation and recovery takes place once mining operations have ceased in a particular area.

The company actively monitors the environment through surveys conducted by independent scientists, the results of which are published in an annual report and peer-reviewed.

According to an article by The Wall Street Journal in July last year, operators controlling the dredging equipment sometimes see fish and octopus sucked up by the hose, but they appear to survive as they are returned to the sea.

Still, environmentalists are concerned about the lack of knowledge about the long-term effects of seabed mining.

“The worry is that we are going to irreparably harm this environment and these species before we discover them,” Emily Jeffers, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, told the Post.

Furthermore, a 2014 policy briefing from the Governance of Africa’s Resources Programme (GARP), which is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, notes that potential impacts of this kind of mining include the removal of mined material, along with organisms living on or under the seabed; the perturbation of the seabed; and the introduction of new materials to the environment.

However, despite environmentalists’ concerns, the offshore mining sector shows no signs of slowing down.

The company actively monitors the environment through surveys conducted by independent scientists

The refitting work to be completed by Wärtsilä, for example, will extend the lifetime of the vessel

Since production began in 2002, Debmarine Namibia has depleted around 50 square miles, just 2% of the licence area. Speaking to CNN, CEO Otto Shikongo said there are probably enough stones scattered across the Atlantic seabed to continue mining for at least the next 20 years. The company’s licence expires in 2035.

Namibia’s Orange River is just the beginning. Deep sea mining offshore Papua New Guinea by Nautilus Minerals is set to get underway in the next few years.

And although Debmarine’s operations are much easier to conduct than deep sea mining, chief executive of DeBeers, Bruce Cleaver, speaking to the Post, has not ruled out new offshore activity elsewhere.