$50 million restarts Elizabeth Bay, Namibia's exports down 67%
Kenzoll Capital and MSF Commercials will revive the mine renamed Sperrgebiet, which holds 10.5 million carats onshore and offshore. Namibian diamond exports fell from NAD 5.1 billion in 2022 to NAD 1.7 billion in 2025.
By The Diamonds Desk
What changed
A closed mine gets capital. Kenzoll Capital and MSF Commercials will restart Elizabeth Bay, renamed Sperrgebiet, on an expected $50 million against a stated 10.5 million carats of resource.
What it means
- If you buy Namibian rough: A 10.5-million-carat resource coming back is a supply signal with no date on it. Nothing here says when a first parcel ships.
- If you read country risk: Exports fell to a third of their 2022 level by 2025. The central bank calls the slump a threat to national growth.
- If you track De Beers: It sold this deposit in 2019 because it could not run it economically. The restart is somebody else's arithmetic.
- What this is not: A production figure. No annual output, grade, capital schedule or restart date was given, and a resource is not a reserve.
Key figures
| Investment expectedsome of it for other minerals | $50m |
|---|---|
| Carats of resourceonshore and offshore | 10.5m |
| Namibian diamond exports2022 peak to 2025 | −67% |
| 2025 exportsfrom NAD 5.1bn in 2022 | NAD 1.7bn |
Source: Kenzoll Capital announcement of Wednesday 7 October 2026, as reported by Rapaport the same day
Fifty million, two parties
Kenzoll and MSF. Dutch private-equity investor Kenzoll Capital is partnering with Namibian-registered MSF Commercials. The deposit is renamed the Sperrgebiet Diamond Mine and holds 10.5 million carats.
Not only diamonds. Some of the $50 million will fund exploration for other minerals. Kenzoll says it has already put more than $10 million into Namibia.
| Year | Namibian dollars | US dollars | Share of 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 peak | NAD 5.1bn | $306.9m | 100% |
| 2025 | NAD 1.7bn | $102.3m | 33.3% |
| Change | −NAD 3.4bn | −$204.6m | −66.7%, printed as −67% |
The division is shown so it can be checked: 1.7/5.1 = 33.3% of the 2022 peak, which is 66.7% below it. The source prints 67% and the dollar legs agree, 102.3/306.9 = 33.3% of, so 66.7% below. The share and the fall are different numbers and are labelled separately here.
Exports fell by two thirds
Down to a third. Namibian diamond exports fell from NAD 5.1 billion in 2022 to NAD 1.7 billion in 2025. That is 33.3% of the peak and 66.7% below it.
The bank is worried. The Bank of Namibia has called the industry slump a major threat to national growth. The restart lands against that backdrop, not a healthy one.
De Beers left in 2019
Sold as uneconomic. De Beers began selling Elizabeth Bay in 2019 because it could no longer run the deposit economically. The sale completed the following year.
A familiar buyer. That 2020 consortium had Lewcor Group as majority owner and MSF Commercials as a minority shareholder. MSF is the party restarting it now.
What to watch
- Through Q4 2026A restart date or production schedule. The announcement carries neither, and a resource with no date is not supply.
- Early 2027Bank of Namibia export data for 2026, the first read on whether the NAD 1.7 billion level was the floor.
- 2027Whether the critical-minerals exploration is funded out of the same $50 million or needs fresh capital.
The story so far
Go deeper
What would change this call
A disclosed capital schedule showing the $50 million is committed over several years rather than deployed into a restart, which would move this from a supply story to an intention.
Resource is not reserve
A stated diamond resource is an estimate of contained carats at a defined confidence, derived from sampling and geological modelling. It is not a reserve, which is the economically mineable portion established by a feasibility study at an assumed price and cost base. A deposit that De Beers judged uneconomic in 2019 can hold the same resource and a different reserve under a new owner's cost structure, lower overheads or a higher rough price. Elizabeth Bay is a coastal deposit with both onshore and offshore ground, and the 10.5-million-carat figure covers both without splitting them.
Method
Rapaport's report was fetched to raw bytes, HTTP 200, 221,148 bytes, saved to newsroom/sources/2026-10-08/elizabethbay.html, and the figures were read out of the article's own body paragraphs after isolating them from the page's related-article rail. Exact-digit greps on that saved file: '10.5 million carats' six hits, '$50 million' three, 67% one, '5.1 billion' one, '306.9 million' one, '1.7 billion' one, '102.3 million' one, '$10 million' one. The comparative percentage was re-divided rather than taken from the source: 1.7/5.1 = 33.3% of, 66.7% below, which rounds to the source's 67%. Archive check, searched in website/content/articles.json by entity: 'Elizabeth Bay' returns zero hits and 'Kenzoll' returns zero hits. The search file is the archive of record and the hit count on both terms is nil, so this is new to this paper. Kenzoll's chief executive is quoted in the source at length; no quote is carried here, and the chief executive's framing of diamonds as a starting point is paraphrased with attribution instead.