The Letlhakane diamond mine is a

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 ...

located in

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...

about west of the city of

Francistown Francistown is the second largest city in Botswana, with a population of about 103,417 and 147,122 inhabitants for its agglomeration at the 2022 census. and often described as the "''Capital of the North''" or as the natives would have it “''T ...

. Letlhakane, meaning "little reeds", is owned by Debswana, a

partnership A partnership is an arrangement where parties, known as business partners, agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments o ...

between the

De Beers De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and c ...

company and the government of Botswana. It is the second oldest of four mines operated by the company, having begun operations in 1975. Letlhakane is of

open pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

construction. In 2003, the mine produced 1.06 million carats (212 kg) of diamond. The recoverable

ore grade Ore is natural Rock (geology), rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.Encyclopædia Britannica. "Ore". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Ret ...

at the mine was about 0.26 carats (52 mg) per ton. The ore produced at Letlhakane used to be processed at a processing plant at its sister mine,

Orapa diamond mine The Orapa diamond mine is the world's largest diamond mine by area. The mine is located in Orapa, a town in the Central District of Botswana about west of the city of Francistown. Orapa ("resting place for lions") is owned by Debswana, a partn ...

, about distant. The Letlhakane mine is also managed from the Orapa mine. In 2015, over 2.1 million tons per year of

ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.Encyclopædia Britannica. "Ore". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 7 April 2 ...

was mined, and over 2.3 million tons was treated, resulting in 583,000 carats of

Ceasing Open Pit Operations

As of 2017, the Letlhakane Mine ceased open pit operations and completed a plant for the processing of

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...

. This is expected to extend the life of the operations at this facility until 2043.

References

{{Botswana-geo-stub Diamond mines in Botswana Open-pit mines Surface mines in Botswana