Aim-listed diamond producer BlueRock Diamonds, which owns and operates the Kareevlei diamond mine in Kimberley, South Africa, has announced that board member Mike Houston has stepped down with immediate effect.

The company expects fellow board member David Facey to also step down later this week. 

Meanwhile, new CEO Victor Dingle has joined the board and Rob Croll has become the new nonexecutive chairperson.

Dingle is an experienced executive, having served as CFO of several public and private companies in sub-Saharan Africa. He is currently CEO and CFO of the diverse group of companies of the Teichmann Group, with expertise in multi-disciplinary construction services, mining and agriculture. He is also the company's largest shareholder. Dingle has previously served as CFO of MTO Forestry, Dangote Cement and Lafarge Cement.

Croll, who joined the board in June last year as an independent nonexecutive director, is an experienced mining engineer. Based in South Africa, he has held various senior executive and consulting positions and gained significant exposure to the financial markets.

He was previously the lead independent nonexecutive director of Resource Generation and brings with him an independent technical and commercial perspective to BlueRock's current operation at Kareevlei and future investments.  

"This is an exciting new phase for the company, having endured several difficult years as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and extreme weather conditions that delayed the commissioning of the new transformational one-million-tonne-a-year plant and the opening up of the main pit to optimise its economic depth potential,” Croll said.

He added that the high-level review completed in June and July this year had provided a clear but challenging path to optimising production, which would enable the company to take advantage of robust diamond market dynamics.