TanzaniteOne (TanzaniteOne Mining Ltd) is a gemstone

mining company This is an incomplete alphabetical list of mining companies. A * Adex Mining * Aditya Birla Group * African Rainbow Minerals * Agnico Eagle * Aiteo * Almonty Industries * Alumina * Anaconda Copper * Anglo American (mining) * Anglo Platinum ...

which exclusively mines the blue gemstone,

tanzanite Tanzanite is the blue and violet variety of the mineral zoisite (a calcium aluminium hydroxyl sorosilicate), caused by small amounts of vanadium. Tanzanite belongs to the epidote mineral group. Tanzanite is only found in Simanjiro District of ...

. TanzaniteOne Mining Ltd is located in Block C, Merelani,

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

. Merelani is the world's only known source of tanzanite. TanzaniteOne Mining Ltd was founded by Richland Resources, a gemstone development and mining company who were listed on the

London Stock Exchange The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange based in London, England. the total market value of all companies trading on the LSE stood at US$3.42 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Paul's Cath ...

s AIM market (AIM:RLD) in 1994 . In 2014 TanzaniteOne was sold to a private company, Sky Associates, who are now the current owners. The tanzanite resource is a long narrow area, divided into four blocks: named " A" to "D". TanzaniteOne Mining own the licence to mine the largest area Block C.

Medium-scale mining Medium-scale mining refers to mining that is larger than artisanal or small-scale mining but smaller than large-scale mining. Its exact definition may vary by country and also between different organizations within a country. Some criteria are based ...

is undertaken by Kilimanjaro Mining in Block A and Tanzanite Africa in Block D-extension. The Company’s neighbouring Blocks B and D are mined largely by thousands of

artisanal An artisan (from , ) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art, sculpture, clothing, food ite ...

miners who use non mechanised methods which do not allow them to mine as deep or as efficiently as Tanzanite One in C block. This poses a challenge for TanzaniteOne, notably in terms of undermining, whereby, the artisanal miners are mining into TanzaniteOne’s designated licence area to access deeper and better ventilated tunnels than their own. Ongoing security issues from the

illegal mining Illegal mining is mining activity that is undertaken without state permission. Illegal mining is the extraction of precious metals/rocks without following the proper procedures to participate in legal mining activity. These procedures include pe ...

and the lack of support from the local police and government agencies were stated as the major factor in the sale of TanzaniteOne by Richland Resources in 2015. TanzaniteOne traditionally sell only rough gemstones to wholesale customers called "Sightholders", adopting a sales strategy which is based on the

Debeers The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...

style of distribution where the sightholder companies are guaranteed a consistent bulk supply of the gemstone, but must purchase all quality grades of the gem as opposed to selecting the goods they require for production. The role of the sightholders is to process rough tanzanite and to manufacture

jewellery Jewellery (or jewelry in American English) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment such as brooches, ring (jewellery), rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the ...

. They have the ability to purchase large amounts of rough and have wholesale and retail distribution networks in place to facilitate the sale of loose tanzanite and finished jewellery. In August 2013 TanzaniteOne announced they had opened an online boutique, www.tananiteoneonline, which sold tanzanite gemstones and tanzanite set gold jewellery. This is the first time the mining company has offered its gemstones to retail customers. In 2015 the website was renamed as richlandgemstones.com after Richland Resources sold TanzaniteOne.

References

{{reflist Mining companies of Tanzania Non-renewable resource companies established in 1994 1994 establishments in Tanzania