Namdeb has under contract several Namibian companies to conduct small scale mining on land and at sea within Namdeb's licensed mining areas.    The mainstay of the contractor operations are the shallow marine diver-assisted mining operations.  Small vessels weighing under fifty tonnes are used as mining platforms from which commercial divers are deployed to a maximum depth of 30 meters to pump gravel from the seabed onto the vessel. The screened gravel is then offloaded at the Namdeb Contractors Treatment Facility (CTF) in Lüderitz where the gravel is treated by Namdeb and the final recovery of diamonds is done by the Contractor.