Diamond dispute gets ugly

Despite the fact that the dispute between the two partners is before the High Court, both companies have launched scathing attacks against each other. African Diamonds has stopped short of accusing majority shareholder, De Beers of bullying to delay the AK6 project indefinitely because it believes the project is compromised by "power supply issues".

These words 'delay...indefinitely...power supply issues...' were recently used by Russian giant Norislk Nickel when they postponed the construction of the Activox refinery project near Francistown. The warning bells of a protracted dispute over the AK6 was clear last week when African Diamonds' boss James Campbell read an emotionally charged statement to about 400 international mining delegates, stating that they had declared a dispute in terms of the shareholders agreement with De Beers.