De Beers begins offshore mining in SA waters

De Beers launched its first diamond mining vessel off the Namaqualand coast in South Africa on Friday April 20. The operation is expected to produce up to 240,000 carats a year.
The ship, named Peace in Africa, costs an estimated $142 million and has an on-board diamond processing facility. The vessel also comes equipped with an undersea remote-controlled mining tool called a crawler that is capable of scouring the ocean floor for diamond-rich gravel.
De Beers is using the same crawler technology that it has already deployed off the Namibian coast.