Modern Mining August 2018

DIAMONDS

downturn. Today there are far fewer partici- pants in the industry – in fact, only a handful of any significance.” He adds that Steyn Diamante is fully empow- ered at the holding company level, with a BEE partner having a 50 % stake in the company. “Our partner is not just a passive investor but a very active participant on a daily basis in the operational side of the business,” he says. Steyn Diamante runs a mixed fleet of min- ing equipment at Schutsekama, with the biggest machine being a 230-ton class Liebherr exca- vator equipped with a 13,8 m 3 bucket which works in conjunction with 100-ton capacity Cat rigid trucks. Volvo machines are well rep- resented in the fleet – apart from the L350H and the three A60Hs, Steyn Diamante also operates three Volvo A35 articulated haulers and four EC480 excavators. According to Steyn, the fleet deployed at Schutsekama differs from those mobilised at previous Steyn Diamante operations. “Because of the high volumes, we’ve gone for heavier machines,” he explains. “In the past, we would typically have had around 100 machines and about 300 operators. Here at Schutsekama we have 45 machines and around 90 operators.” Steyn is a great believer in the Volvo brand and has, over the years, purchased over 100 Volvo machines, all of them acquired through Babcock’s Kimberley depot, which has been run since start-up by Johan Vorster. “Our experience is that the Volvo machines are top-notch,” says Steyn. “Their performance and reliability is excellent and their fuel efficiency ranks with the best we’ve seen. We also expect good aftermar- ket support from all our suppliers and Babcock

when he mined – not very successfully, he concedes – a diamond deposit in the Central African Republic. After a second stint in the Central African Republic in the late 90s, he started to look at alluvial opportunities in the Northern Cape, which eventually led to him establishing Steyn Diamante in 2004. “Since the company was founded, we’ve experienced the good times and the bad times but generally we’ve been successful,” Steyn recounts. “The biggest challenge we ever faced was in 2008 and 2009, when the global finan- cial crisis led to the price of rough diamonds falling very sharply. We managed to survive by retrenching and cutting our costs drasti- cally but many of the Northern Cape alluvial diamond miners disappeared as a result of this

The L350H with two A60H haulers waiting to be loaded.

The L350H in action at Schutsekama. Steyn Diamante has been

impressed by the reach and lift height of the machine.

24  MODERN MINING  August 2018