Debswana Remains De Beers' Major Producer

The group's Chairman said this on Friday when answering questions during a telephone conferencing from South Africa after the company unveiled its annual results for 2007. Nicky Oppenheimer said De Beers was hopeful that the Government of Botswana would make sure that power outages "do not affect the mines, looking at the importance of diamonds to the economy of the country." In an interview by similar means, De Beers Botswana's Chief Executive Officer Sheila Khama said the diamond mines were only marginally affected by power cuts so far. 

But Khama, who sits on the board of De Beers Botswana, said the company had a contingency plan to surface production during power outages. Meanwhile, De Beers' annual results show that Debswana, which is a joint venture between the Government of Botswana and De Beers, remains the group's major producer.