Gaborone: The De Beers Group is set to invest around $3billion over the next 10 years on its diamond mining operations.

Fin24 reports that the bulk of the investment would be spend on its key South African mine, Venetia in Limpopo where the underground mine was expected to extend its life beyond 2040.

Venetia produced 3.2 million carats in the 2014 financial year and this was expected to leap to 4.5 million carats a year from 2021 when the underground mine being developed comes on stream.

Group chief financial officer Gareth Mostyn said that although they had its roots in Kimberley in the Northern Cape, the life of the mining operations there “is relatively short to be quite honest… we don’t expect it [to last] beyond the end of this decade… 2018 or 2019.”

“Kimberley and Voorspoed are still big contributors [to the De Beers diamond cake] … but Venetia is the [company’s] biggest diamond mine,” he said.

Mostyn said De Beers’ capital expenditure was $700 million last year. This, he said, was up by about $200 million with the spending focused on Venetia and on the Botswana and Canadian mines.