A new diamond recovery vessel has departed Damen Shipyards Mangalia in Romania for its maiden voyage and is now en route to Cape Town, South Africa, for the installation of mission equipment prior to beginning regular operations.
The vessel is owned and operated by Debmarine Namibia, a subsidiary of UK-based diamond mining and jewelry company De Beers. It will use subsea crawling extraction techniques to retrieve diamonds from the seabed off the coast of Namibia.
The vessel is also equipped for processing diamonds.
Damen said that, at 177 metres in length, the newbuild is the largest diamond recovery vessel in the world and the new flagship of the Debmarine Namibia fleet. The owners expect it to operate for at least 30 years.
