Miners' Communications: A Lack of Clarity

RAPAPORT...A bizarre press release from Alrosa landed in the RapaportNews inbox in early October, purporting to relay positive results from the"washing season of 2018" at one of its subsidiaries. What exactly occurs duringthe Almazy Anabara washing season, which "lasted from the twenties of May to the24th of September"? That much was a mystery. Since the text seemed to be aboutmining and production, we presumed Alrosa was describing something morecritical to its business than how well its cleaners had mopped the floors, orwhether the Russian executives' shirts had dried efficiently in the summer sun.So we carried on reading."Such results were achieved due to, without limitation, theadvanced diamond-bearing sand processing technology," clarified PavelMarinychev, CEO of Almazy Anabara, in the next sentence. "In particular, wehave upgraded the X-ray luminescent separation line to decrease workload ofdense-media separation units at the Bolshaya Kuonamka deposit and to increasecapacity of grading units." At this point, the only thing clear to us was that we didn'tunderstand what this news item was trying to say, and neither would ourreaders. So we decided not to cover it. Alrosa's subsequent mention ofexpansions to "tank parks of fuel and lubricant materials" only left us morebaffled, and even less likely to run the story.The quest for plain languageThis is a common problem in the diamond industry, especiallyamong miners - and not just those like Alrosa, where English is a secondlanguage. When journalists receive an unclear press release, they eitherrepublish it without a thought - which is bad practice and unhelpful for thereader - or disregard it altogether. We can guess why this kind of opaqueness happens. Manypeople are involved in producing corporate communications for a company, andthey all have interests and preferences. The media teams - who just want goodpress coverage - find themselves bowing to the technical staff who can't bearto see their "load haul dumpers" described merely as "trucks." "People along the way - those technical people, financialexperts - aren't trained in plain-language techniques, and they're not reallytrained in how to communicate to the average consumer," says Jeff Greer, adirector at the Richmond, Virginia-based Center for Plain Language. Evencompanies that have writing guidelines often ignore them when there is pressureto publish something fast, he adds. Striking a balanceAmong the other miners having such difficulties, apparently,are small-scale producers Diamcor and Trans Hex. Rapaport Magazinecontacted them after attempting to process their jargon (see box), but did notreceive responses by press time. Alrosa, for its part, is often trying to strike a balancebetween plain language and jargon, says Evgeniya Kozenko, the miner's head ofcommunications (whose follow-up explanations of Alrosa press releases arealways far more coherent than the original texts). While the company is workingto make its writing clearer and more interesting, she says, it also needs to useterms that have meaning for specialists. "The core of the problem - if we can call it a problem - isthat our industry is very complicated and targeted to different audiences,"Kozenko notes.Words of hopeYet some companies do manage to communicate clearly. Whilemany miners publish long and complicated income statements, De Beers condensesits key data into short, meaningful summaries and publishes press releases thatsay exactly what the company needs to say, in no more words than necessary. In fact, De Beers' internal guidelines require it to do so.The people who write and release external communications take content fromaround the company and turn it into comprehensible English, explains DavidJohnson, De Beers' senior manager for media and commercial communications. "As none of us in the group communications team are immersedin any specific part of the business, we can often use our own level ofunderstanding as a guide for when something is unlikely to make senseexternally," Johnson explains. "With a growing expectation from society at large for moreinsight into how companies operate and why they should be trusted, we thinkit's important to try to be clear about what we do," he adds. Hopefully, those in the trade who haven't yet grasped thisprinciple will start to follow suit. Man's search for meaningCan you interpret these sentences? Rapaport gives it a try...AlrosaTheir words: "The Company plans to increase production atthe deposits of Ebelyakh group by 1 million carats next year. According toMarinychev, some preliminary work has been carried out for this purpose - thetank parks of fuel and lubricant materials have been expanded, newspecial-purpose equipment has been ordered, rotation camps are beingdeveloped." What we think it means: "The company plans to increaseproduction at the Ebelyakh group's deposits by 1 million carats next year. Toachieve this, we have upgraded our equipment and ordered some new items." Trans HexTheir words: "Post year-end, Trans Hex Operations (Pty) Ltd('THO'), a wholly owned subsidiary of Trans Hex, entered into an agreement withLower Orange River Diamonds (Pty) Ltd ('LOR Diamonds'), in terms of which THOhas agreed to, inter alia, dispose of the business conducted by THO, as a goingconcern, relating to and in connection with the exploration, prospecting,mining for, recovery, treatment, production and disposal of diamonds in respectof the LOR operations, consisting of certain assets, liabilities and thetransfer of employees; and cede and transfer the mining right associated withthe LOR operations, to LOR Diamonds, for a total cash consideration of R72million." What we think it means: "Following the end of the financialyear, our subsidiary, Trans Hex Operations (THO), agreed to sell its entirebusiness to Lower Orange River Diamonds for ZAR 72 million." DiamcorTheir words: "The initial modifications completed on theCompany's In-field dry-screening plant were focused on improving the crushingof larger material to reduce the amount of fine kimberlitic clay materialreporting to the Company's Main Treatment Plant, and by doing so, reduce thepreviously announced water recovery issues being caused by these kimberliticclays." What we think it means: "We upgraded the machine that sortsore. Somehow."Image: A Trans Hex mine. (Trans Hex)This article was first published in the November 2018 issue of Rapaport Magazine.