The Catoca

diamond mine There are a limited number of commercially available diamond mines currently operating in the world, with the 50 largest mines accounting for approximately 90% of global supply. Diamonds are also mined alluvially over disperse areas, where dia ...

is the fourth largest

diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the Chemical stability, chemically stable form of car ...

mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging * Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun ...

in the world, and is located in

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

. The mine was owned by a consortium of international mining interests, including

Endiama Endiama E.P. (''Empresa Nacional de Diamantes E.P.'') is the national diamond company of Angola and it is the exclusive concessionary of mining rights in the domain of diamonds. Angola's state-run diamond company Endiama produced 8.55 million car ...

(the state mining company of Angola) (32.8% ownership), Alrosa of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

(32.8%),

Odebrecht Odebrecht S.A. (), officially known as Novonor, is a Brazilian conglomerate, headquartered in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, consisting of diversified businesses in the fields of engineering, construction, chemicals and petrochemicals. The company w ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

(16.4%), and the Diamond Finance CY BV Group (16.8%). The mine is located on a

kimberlite Kimberlite is an igneous rock and a rare variant of peridotite. It is most commonly known to be the main host matrix for diamonds. It is named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where the discovery of an diamond called the Star of ...

pipe Pipe(s), PIPE(S) or piping may refer to: Objects * Pipe (fluid conveyance), a hollow cylinder following certain dimension rules ** Piping, the use of pipes in industry * Smoking pipe ** Tobacco pipe * Half-pipe and quarter pipe, semi-circula ...

. In June 2022, Angola seized a stake in the nation’s biggest diamond miner, giving it majority control.

Production

The mine had production of in 2000 and in 2001. The mine's production is 35% gem quality, compared to a global average of 20%; the diamonds produced at Catoca have an average value of US$75–$100 per carat ($375–500/g). Estimated reserves are 60 million carats (12 tonnes). The diamonds from Catoca Mining Society topped the sales of 2009, with a net profit of US$70 million, resulting from a gross production of US$122.6 million, Angop. The information is contained in an annual report from the company released in September 2011. According to the source, the sales reached , at the average rate of US$62.23, a volume that represented about 78 percent of the amount sold by the diamond companies around the country. The note states that as a result of the processing of the ore, the company obtained a total of 7.5 million carats that permitted it to establish the operational cost. In 2012 the mine extracted out of 10 million tonnes of ore production.

2021 tailings leak

In July 2021, waste material from the mine leaked into the nearby Tshikapa river. The

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

stated the contaminated water killed 12 people, and sickened more than 4,000. The spill turned the river red and killed large numbers of fish, but Catoca claimed the spill did not contain

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. Independent testing found the presence of

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

and

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

contamination. Satellite imaging collected by the European Space Agency's

Sentinel-2 Sentinel-2 is an Earth observation mission from the Copernicus Programme that systematically acquires optical imagery at high spatial resolution (10 m to 60 m) over land and coastal waters. The mission is currently a constellation with two satel ...

was able to infer the extent of the impact on water quality by observing the change in the river's color. The government of the DRC initially said it would pursue unspecified monetary damages for the incident, but as of October 2022, no talks had taken place.

Geology

The Catoca diamond deposit occurs in a

pipe.Pervov, V. A., Somov, S. V., Korshunov, A. V., Dulapchii, E. V., & Félix, J. T. (2011). The Catoca kimberlite pipe, Republic of Angola: A paleovolcanological model. Geology of Ore Deposits, 53(4), 295-308.

References

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MBendi

Catoca Diamond Mine (Катока) в энциклопедии "Карьеры мира"
Diamond mines in Angola Surface mines in Angola Diatremes Volcanoes of Angola Pre-Holocene volcanoes Tailings dam failures Dam failures in Africa 2021 disasters in Angola Man-made disasters in Angola