Heard this tale again from three sources..... 1 from Marine and the other local......
Debmarine operates diamond boats just off the Oranjemund coast......
Debmarine workers reside in Windhoek and are flown down to Oranjemund by plane and then airlifted by helicopter out to the boats on a rotational basis.
A lot of the Debmarine workers are ex Oranjemunders, now residing up in Windhoek..... De Beers pays them a substantial housing allowance to stay up there...
Now with the tight financial situation DeBeers finds themselves in, somebody has clicked that the Group could save a small fortune by relocating those said employees down to Oranjemund, thus saving a massive amount on housing and flying gas guzzling aircraft up and down the whole time...... Why not? Oranjemund has 280 empty houses that belong to Debeers indirectly...
This would not only save Oranjemund, but would benefit the local economy also.........
Has anyone heard anything about this tale...... or is it just pie in the sky?
Could so be true ... big organisations .. left hand not always knowing what the right is doing .. not looking at the obvious ... too many folk doing smoke and mirrors ,,, crazy decisions made ... been there , seen it ,, lived under it . know it all .. so yes not an unfair critiscism or attack on the " big knobs " , but a very possible reality ... keep this one live Mike .. somebody " up there " will see it and yes maybe questions will be asked ..
This is not new, nearly happened sometime back.....has been put off a couple of times.
Think lots of employees have bought houses in Windhoek and rely on the housing allowance.
What happens if they have to move to Oranjemund.
I have a friend (Jim Walls .... who now lives in Scotland) who actually worked offshore for Debmarine.
He was a captain of a rig off the coast of Oranjemund (about 10 years ago) he did a six week on 2 week off rotation. His tales about the amount of diamonds sucked up are quite unbelievable.......... who knows, maybe they were. lol
Bearing in mind that Namdeb and Debmarine are separate companies, with different budgets, but I guess it would help (OTMCO/Namdeb) go quite a long way if the Debmarine people moved here and then Debmarine could contribute a certain percentage to the budget to run and maintain the town..... after all the future of the diamond mining industry in Namibia is offshore , here at Oranjemund and not up in Windhoek....
Just my 2 cents...
Same holding company ?? or not ?? ... if same holding co then its worth it , how did even happen in the first place with folk staying in whk and not close to the source of work >>??
De Beers Marine Namibia or Namdeb Marine, which ever way we look at it... there offices are all in WDK, so have your boytjies close to CHQ and keep an eye on them when they're on the shore...
Good idea as far as Omund is concerned. Keeps the town full, keeps whiskey in Mike's cupboard, the water clean, OTMCo subs in business, etc... oh yes, more participants for the various sports clubs.
Alternatively, move DBMN offices to Omund, infrastructure should be able to cope, then they can still keep an eye on their boytjies...
Hey, next rumour starts something like... DBMN & Kudu build joint harbour at Omund.
Imagine that... wow!!!
De Beers: Cost cuts help profit
2009/07/09 04:12:00 PM
London - Top diamond producer De Beers will achieve a positive interim and full-year bottom line despite slashing output by 90% in the first quarter, an official said on Thursday.
"We've definitely seen signs of recovery in the market, but we're talking about first half numbers and it's certainly no surprise that at least the first quarter of the first half was historically difficult," David Prager, director of communications, told Reuters.
"It won't be negative... clearly there'll be a drop, but I don't think it will be dramatic... maybe some people will even be surprised because it's better than they thought," he said in a telephone interview.
"The company will be profitable this year and obviously that's critically important."
The firm, which controls about 40% of the rough diamond market, plans to cut operating and capital costs by a total of $1.5bn this year, he added.
The group is 45% owned by mining group Anglo American Plc.
Thinking that we need more people in Omund, and the argument that all the Debmarine folk in Windhoek all have houses to pay off.... Well , DeBeers gave the guys a housing allowance to pay their monthly rentals in Windhoek.... they never told the folks that they should buy..... Did DeBeers guarantee them work for the next 20 years whilst they pay off their bonds......
We need more people in OMund..... and quick!!!!!!!!
So... Quick... build the harbour, we can ship all the folk in directly, even dock the MV's here for repairs, ship the gas in for the power station... what else, crayfishing, smaller shallow water diamond contractors boats... cruise liners...!
Ahoy... land ahead.
Now , where did those Arabs go to?
image201
Now to flog a dead horse if I may.... was in discussion with a person that knows Debeers Marine Ops very well, he was aware of this move that Debmarine wanted to make to Omund a year back, but the crazy thing that rocked the whole plan, DEBeers in Oranjemund wanted to charge DeBeers marine to much for the houses, so the whole thing was abandoned.... this chap shook his head, Oranejmund would have become the HQ for Debmarine..... the houses and the local economy would be secured, the future of the town would have been secured..... the confusing thing that puzzled him the most... was we all thought Demarine and Namdeb were part of the same parent company......
I wonder who the pratt was that screwed up this chance for our town.....
23_146_26
2 posts back .... our Arabs went to Naute dam...
SO what are the chances that the DeBeers oukies can relook their cost for the housing...? Consider the potential in the long run. Or do they feel that Omund has passed its sell by date?
As Mike says... thought DeBeers was DeBeers, we must have missed something along the way.
Mushrooms...!
Well. I ain't gonna do it...... I will write a letter to a person that matters..... watch this space...
:ciupa1:
Was at a braai last night, where this tale surfaced last night, a person in the know reckons a bucket of money would be saved by the DeBeers group if this move went ahead and Oranjemund's future secured...
The sea operations have already been split off into a separate company, we on our own now, don't think they gonna invest any money in Oranjemund.