Colour me Red

A visit to responsible mining company Gemfields’ Montepuez Ruby Mine in Mozambique reveals its journey towards becoming the world’s largest supplier of rubies

- Neeti Mehra

It is just past midnight when we arrive at Gemfields’ Montepuez Ruby Mine (MRM) camp, tucked away in northeastern Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, tousled haired and red-eyed after nearly 40 hours of travel. The Montepuez ruby deposit sweeps over thickly forested area, covering nearly 33,600 hectares of land, and is heralded as the most significant, recently discovered ruby deposit in the world. A fact less apparent at this late hour is that this is a momentous expedition, especially since half way across the globe in Burma, the supply of striking “pigeon blood” rubies from Mogok, the benchmark of rubies, is dwindling.

Local hunters had stumbled on a cluster of rubies over here nearly a decade ago, and soon, artisanal miners, referred to as garimpeiros, riddled the area, faster than moths take to light. The next morning, en route to the mine, we saw a handful of them, with their pick axes and shovels, disappearing into the thicket for a day’s work. In 2011, Gemfields, a supplier of responsibly sourced gemstones, inked an agreement with Mwiriti Limitada, a private Mozambican company, acquiring a 75 per cent controlling interest in the JV to mine and explore the region. Dev Shetty, the company’s COO, describes MRM as a “text-book project” for the industry. In a span of four years, the operations have literally been a money making machine for the company. The approximate $60 million invested in MRM has been earned back manifold — nearly $197 million of rubies and corundum (crystallised aluminium oxide) have been sold. In fact, the ruby auction held earlier this year generated record total revenues of $44.3 million for the mine — averaging $29.21 per carat.