By Lesedi Sibiya-Diplomatic Insider 

A two-year production pause has been implemented at De Beers’ Venetia mine in Limpopo and this could cause a mass loss of employment for thousands of workers on the mine in surrounding communities. 

The decision to halt production is part of a broad global production cut by the diamond conglomerate due to weak demand and an oversupply of rough diamonds.

 The Venetia mine is known as South Africa’s biggest diamond mine as it produces 40% of the country’s diamonds and employs around 4,000 people. According to researcher David Van Wyk, De Beers has been scaling back their operations in countries such as Botswana and Canada apart from South Africa.

 “What’s surprising about the Venetia mine is that they spent R2.5 billion going around from an open-cast mine in 2024” said Van Wyk. “It’s kind of an admission also that there is an oversupply of rough diamonds on global markets and that they are trying to cut back that supply” Van Wyk continued further.

 De Beers plans to restructure its global operating model to focus resources on its core businesses as well as reducing corporate costs. “Our commitment is to focus on value, improve resilience and position De Beers to compete strongly as industry conditions recover” said Chief Executive, Al Cook. 

The mine had been operating in South Africa for over 30 years and had opened a new 1,000 metre underground expansion to extract the remaining ore currently sitting in the mine. The company has also noted that there is an increasing rarity of diamonds as well as the emerging signs of improvement in consumer demand and is expected to support long-term value creation. 

Rough diamond trading conditions are expected to remain challenging in the near terms which is largely due to cyclical and industry specific challenges.