Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority

to levels capable of sustaining seawalls from the relentless Atlantic coast.
More recently, the introduction of dredging technology for overburden
stripping has proved very effective in sustaining seawall development
whilst adding a new dimension to these operations through the treatment
of very low-grade suspended gravel lenses within the overburden that
could not be mined profitably using conventional methods.
Such cycles of process and technology innovation characterise
many different aspects of the mining industry throughout the world.
There is no doubt that the future of the offshore diamond mining industry
will also be dependent upon similar progress being sustained. This will
require the commitment of significant financial resources as well as the
development of specialised intellectual capital. A similar scenario can also
be envisaged for deep ocean mining operations, with important
implications for teams involved in mineral resource development and the
process of resource/reserve transformation.
Deep-water diamond mining systems
Already in the ten years of large-scale mining there has been
considerable development in mining technology, and there has been a
clear progression from the early pioneering attempts to make the
transformation from exploration to full production. The De Beers board
recognised that this change would require a major commitment of
financial and technical resources in the early 1980’s. As a result, DBM
purchased and converted a vessel to specifically act as a platform for
mining system development, the “Louis Murray” named in honour of one
of Anglo American’s consulting geologists who was tragically killed in an
aircraft accident. This vessel was used to test many systems before it was
brought into full-scale production using a track-mounted seafloor
“crawler” at considerable cost to De Beers.
Improved knowledge about the physical nature of the deep-water
diamond deposits and insight into the variable way in which any one
mining system interacts with different types of ore body and seafloor
terrain make it clear that no one mining system will be effective and
efficient across the spectrum of conditions that exist. Realisation of this
led DBM to examine non-crawler-based mining systems in the late 1980’s
leading to the purchase of the first drill ship for conversion to a mining
system in 1989. Following a number of modifications throughout 1990, the
success of the Coral Sea as a production facility from April 1991 resulted in
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