Omani firm replaces sanctions-hit Alrosa in Angolan diamond miner

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Omani firm replaces sanctions-hit Alrosa in Angolan diamond miner

9:59 CAT | 29 Nov 2024

FILE - A view shows gem-quality stones, including a rare 242-carat rough diamond that will be offered at the 100th international auction of Russian state-controlled diamond producer Alrosa, during a presentation in Moscow, Russia February 25, 2021. [File photo: Reuters/Tatyana Makeyeva]

A subsidiary of the sovereign wealth fund of Oman is replacing Russian sanctions-hit Alrosa in Angola’s state-controlled diamond miner Catoca, an Angolan official said on Thursday.

Angola has been under pressure to cease its long-standing partnership with Russian state-controlled Alrosa, the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds by volume, since 2022 when the West imposed sanctions on Alrosa for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“From now on, we have a new partner and this partner is the one that will exercise the rights that until now belonged to Alrosa,” Diamantino Azevedo, Angola’s minister of mineral resources, oil and gas, told a national radio station.

“Alrosa, a partner of Endiama in the Catoca mining company, will cease to be a partner of this company and, consequently, also a partner of the Luele mining company,” he added.

Alrosa, which owned 41% in Catoca, declined to comment.

Azevedo did not provide any further details about the deal with the Omani firm.

Having sanctions-hit Alrosa as a shareholder in the Angolan diamond miner was affecting “Angola’s credibility in the international diamond market,” the minister said.

Source: Reuters