Rio Tinto manages and also owns a 68.6 per cent interest in Rössing Uranium, an open pit uranium mine and processing plant in the Namib desert, Namibia, south-western Africa. The mine came into commercial production in 1978 and remains one of the world's most efficient uranium mines. Uranium ore is mined from an open pit by conventional means and processed on site into uranium oxide. This is exported for use solely by electricity generating utilities worldwide under national and international safeguards and scrutiny. Production has been lower than the 4,500 tonnes per year capacity for some years due to market conditions. Rössing employs about 800 people, and its non discriminatory conditions of employment have always been unequalled in Namibia.