Cameroon will begin mining diamonds close to the end of 2010. The decision was made after discovering 736 million carats of diamond deposits in the country’s south-eastern Mobilong region, according to a Bloomberg report. 

“Mining could begin a year from now,” says Oscar Matip, Cameroon’s director of mines and geology at the Ministry of Industries, Mines, and Technological Development, told reporters last week in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital. 

Oscar Matip, Cameroon’s director of mines and geology. 

C&K Mining, a joint-venture between an unidentified South Korean company and the Cameroonian government, had the Mobilong area surveyed in 2008. “This amount could represent five times the world’s annual consumption,” Matip said in the Bloomberg report.

JCK