Botswana built the most successful diamond economy on earth, and in 2025 that economy contracted for the second year running. Debswana cut production to 15.1 million carats, 40 percent below its 2023 level, pausing pits and plants through the year as lab-grown stones and weak Chinese demand hollowed out the rough market, a reset unpacked in our diamond mining in Africa guide. Diamonds are around 80 percent of exports and a third of government revenue, so when they catch cold, the country runs a fever: GDP shrank about 1 percent in 2025 after a 3 percent fall in 2024.
Yet the most interesting thing happening in Botswana’s mining industry is not the diamond slump. It is the quiet assembly of a second act: two copper mines on the Kalahari Copper Belt are expanding at once, and the state is negotiating for control of the diamond company that made it rich.
Who owns Botswana’s diamond mines?
Debswana, a 50-50 joint venture between the Government of Botswana and De Beers, operates Jwaneng and Orapa and produces about 90 percent of the country’s diamonds. The main independent is Lucara Diamond Corp, whose wholly owned Karowe mine is the source of some of the largest rough stones ever recovered.
That 50-50 balance is now in motion. Anglo American, which owns 85 percent of De Beers, is divesting it as part of the restructuring covered in our top 10 African mining companies guide, and wrote the business down by another 2.3 billion dollars in 2025 on top of 2.9 billion in 2024. Botswana, holder of the other 15 percent, has said publicly it wants a majority, reportedly exploring financing with Oman’s sovereign wealth fund. Nothing has closed, but the February 2025 sales agreement already moved the economics: the state’s Okavango Diamond Company will take 40 percent of Debswana’s output within five years, up from 30, and half in any extension, under a 10-year deal that also extended Debswana’s licences to 2054.
How bad is the diamond downturn?
Debswana produced 17.93 million carats in 2024, down 27 percent, then 15.1 million in 2025, down another 16. Jwaneng’s Cut 9 paused mining for three months in 2025. Orapa idled a plant repeatedly. De Beers’ own group output fell to 21.7 million carats. The one bright spot came late: Botswana’s economy grew 10.9 percent in the third quarter of 2025 as diamond trading recovered from the floor.
The response at Jwaneng is to dig, not retreat: the board approved roughly 1 billion dollars in 2024 for the first phase of the underground project, part of an estimated 6 billion dollar program to extend the world’s most valuable diamond mine to around 2054.
What did Karowe find this time?
In August 2024 Lucara recovered the Motswedi, a 2,488-carat rough diamond, the second-largest ever after the Cullinan of 1905, and confirmed by the GIA as the largest known single-crystal diamond. A 1,094-carat stone followed weeks later. Karowe sold 353,302 carats for 159.7 million dollars in 2025, and its own future is underground too: a 779 million dollar expansion targeting the high-value South Lobe, with first underground production expected in the first half of 2028.
Watch Botswana’s next chapter
AMIQ tracks Botswana’s diamond, copper and coal projects with verified contacts at their owners.
Is Botswana becoming a copper country?
Meaningfully, yes. Two operations anchor the Kalahari Copper Belt. Khoemacau, bought by China’s MMG at an enterprise value near 1.9 billion dollars in 2024, guided 43,000 to 53,000 tonnes for 2025 and, in December 2025, approved a roughly 900 million dollar expansion to 130,000 tonnes of copper a year plus over 4 million ounces of silver. Ground broke in February 2026 with first concentrate from the new plant expected in 2028. Sandfire’s Motheo, opened in 2023, has already been expanded past its design capacity and produced a record 58,000 tonnes of copper equivalent in its 2025 financial year despite what the company called a generational rain event.
Copper will not replace diamond revenue this decade, but for suppliers the belt is the growth market: two funded expansions, one new plant build, and an owner in MMG that also runs Kinsevere in the DRC and is building a regional African portfolio.
The exploration queue behind the two copper mines
Khoemacau and Motheo are the producing face of a belt that is still mostly undrilled. The Kalahari Copper Belt runs for roughly a thousand kilometres under sand cover, which is why it stayed hidden so long and why the juniors working it lean on geophysics as much as drilling. Rio Tinto’s entry into a joint venture with junior Cobre signalled that the majors consider the belt worth a position. Beyond copper, Botswana’s pipeline includes uranium around Letlhakane and a battery-grade manganese project south of Gaborone, both of which would diversify the three-pillar economy further if built. For drilling contractors, geophysics crews and assay laboratories, the belt is one of southern Africa’s better exploration markets right now.
Water, power and the cost of mining under sand
The Kalahari gives with one hand and takes with the other. The copper mines sit far from the eastern corridor where Botswana’s grid, rail and towns cluster, so every project carries its own wellfields, long transmission or generation, camps and roads. That remoteness is a supplier market in itself: borehole drilling and water infrastructure, diesel and increasingly solar generation, camp services and long-haul logistics. On the national grid, coal-fired Morupule remains the anchor while solar procurement grows, and the mining industry’s power demand is part of what keeps both moving.
Keeping more of the diamond at home
The other Botswana story is where the value goes after the stone leaves the pit. Government has spent two decades pulling the diamond chain onshore: De Beers’ international sales moved to Gaborone in 2013, a local cutting and polishing industry has been built policy by policy, and the February 2025 agreement accelerates the trend by lifting the state’s Okavango Diamond Company toward 40 percent of Debswana’s output. Every percentage point that stays in-country grows a downstream economy of sort houses, security, banking, and skills that suppliers to the diamond value chain, not just the mines, can sell into.
What else does Botswana mine?
Coal, mainly through the state-owned Morupule mine near Palapye, which feeds the Morupule B power station and exports to neighbours, with capacity being lifted by an open-cast extension. Nickel has faded, and the Ghaghoo diamond mine was rehabilitated and handed back to the state in 2025 after failing to find a buyer. The story is consolidation around three pillars: diamonds, copper, coal.
Reading Botswana as a supplier
The procurement map has flipped. Diamond capex is concentrated in two long underground projects, Jwaneng and Karowe, both multi-year, both technically demanding. Copper capex is nearer-term and construction-heavy: Khoemacau’s expansion alone spans a new 4.5 million tonne plant and everything that comes with it. AMIQ tracks 2,200+ African mining projects with verified owner and engineer contacts, Botswana’s included, through an AMIQ subscription. For the neighbouring markets, see diamond mining in Africa and copper mining in Africa.
Frequently asked questions
How many diamonds does Botswana produce?
Debswana produced 15.1 million carats in 2025, down from 17.93 million in 2024 and about 24.6 million in 2023, deliberate cuts in response to weak rough-diamond demand.
Who owns De Beers?
Anglo American holds 85 percent and the Government of Botswana 15 percent. Anglo is in the process of divesting. Botswana has expressed interest in a majority stake. No transaction had closed as of mid-2026.
What are Botswana’s copper mines?
Khoemacau (MMG), expanding toward 130,000 tonnes a year under a roughly 900 million dollar program approved in December 2025, and Sandfire’s Motheo, which produced a record 58,000 tonnes of copper equivalent in its 2025 financial year.
What is the Kalahari Copper Belt?
A copper-silver belt running roughly a thousand kilometres through Botswana into Namibia, hidden under Kalahari sand, which is why it was explored so late. Khoemacau and Motheo are its first modern mines, with juniors and a Rio Tinto joint venture exploring along strike.
Does Botswana cut its own diamonds?
Increasingly. De Beers’ international sales moved to Gaborone in 2013, a local cutting and polishing industry has been built deliberately, and the state’s Okavango Diamond Company is contracted to take a rising share of Debswana’s output, keeping more of the value chain in-country.
