Rio Tinto began operating in then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1956 as Rio Tinto Southern Rhodesia Limited.

Her first venture in the country earned a nickel deposit in the Kadoma area.

This was the first global Rio Tinto project, as reported on the RioZim website.

After many years of mining nickel, copper, coal and other minerals, Rio Tinto in the early 1990s began to implement a program in Zimbabwe geological exploration aimed only at finding diamonds.

The exploration came to fruition in 1997 when the company discovered three diamond-bearing kimberlite pipes in the Murowa area, located in the southwest of Zimbabwe, about 450 km from the capital city of Harare.

Between 1998 and 2000, a feasibility study was carried out and mine planning was carried out, after which a small mine was launched in 2004.

Since 2004, the company has produced and sold over 1 million carats of diamonds on international markets, with 10 percent of Murowa Diamonds being reserved for the local diamond industry, as prescribed by the country's legislation.

Mining at a mine-type mine makes it possible to produce about 400,000 carats per year in large, predominantly white diamonds of jewelery quality.

As of 2013, diamond reserves at the mine amounted to about 4.9 million carats with an average diamond content of 0.9 carats per tonne of ore.

According to rumors circulating in 2013, Rio Tinto, which owned a 78 percent stake in Murowa Diamonds, wanted to get rid of it in the company.

At some point in the reports on this topic, it was even suggested that De Beers Consolidated Mines, the South African division of the De Beers group, was one of seven potential contenders for the purchase of Rio Tinto's shares in this mine.

De Beers has previously carried out some extensive exploration work in the area, but it has not been able to locate the diamond deposit.

Rio Tinto did not disclose the reasons why she wanted to get rid of the Murova mine, and one could only guess that this was partly due to the country's policy of indigenization, which limits the proportion of foreign actors in local mines to a ceiling of 49 percent.

Some mining companies capitulated before such requirements; Rio Tinto, it seemed, resisted this pressure, still holding its 78-percent stake in the mine.

Care

Despite apparent resistance to Harare pressure, earlier this year there were reports that, as Rio Tinto had notified its employees in Zimbabwe, state taxes, rather than indigenization policies, would most likely force it to close the Murova mine, which Deutsche Bank in 2013 estimated at $ 279 million.

"The government has outlined a tax regime that includes rent for land, which burdens the business," said Zebra Kasete, the managing director of the mine, in a letter to employees whom Bloomberg was familiar with at the time.

"The management team constantly maintains contacts with the government and hopes for some positive way out of this process; Otherwise it will affect the viability of Murowa Diamonds as an operating company, "he noted.

Bloomberg reported in January that the rent for the land for the diamond mines is $ 3,000 per hectare, and the Murova mine owns more than 30,000 hectares, which will cost the company about $ 109 million per year.

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