A government official in Angola announced that Russian stakes in the country’s two major diamond mines have been sold to an Oman-backed fund as a result of international sanctions.
Russia’s diamond giant Alrosa was until now co-owner of Angola’s Catcoa mine, the world’s fourth largest, and Luele mine in partnership with the South African country’s state-owned company Endiama.
The European Union sanctioned state-owned Alrosa and its CEO in January as part of a ban on diamond imports over the Ukraine war.
Angola’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Petroleum, Diamantino Azevedo, said this had led to the ‘prevention of the commercialisation’ of diamonds from the Catcoa and Luele mines.
Azevedo said that following ‘discussions between the Angolan and Russian governments, as well as between Endiama and its partner’, Alrosa had now ‘officially ceased its activities in Angola’.
The minister added that the company had been replaced by ‘Maden International Group, a subsidiary of the Sovereign Fund of the Sultanate of Oman’.
