JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Following consultations with the Lesotho Ministry of Mines, Aim-listed emerging diamond explorer Paragon Diamonds has revised its mining licence application for the Lemphane project, as it now plans to start Stage 1 production at a rate of over 500 000 t/y, as opposed to the initially planned 200 000 t/y.

The Aim-listed company said in a statement on Thursday that, with the revised production level, it was expected to recover some 10 000 ct, including a significant percentage of large stones, and that the operation’s development path would be shortened by a year.

“This positive revision, in combination with other recent clarifications on the application, gives us confidence that the granting of the mining licence is imminent.

“Upon agreement and granting of the licence, which was lodged in February, the group will release an updated work programme for Lemphane, which it is keen to accelerate as soon as possible,” commented chairperson Martin Doyle.

In line with the lifted production objective, the next stage at the Lesotho-based project would see the installation and commissioning of a greater capacity plant that would be able to process over 500 000 t/y.

Paragon significantly accelerated bulk sampling on the Lemphane kimberlite earlier this year, having successful installed and commissioned a steady water supply from the nearby perennial Malibamatso river in January.

Since the start of the sampling programme last year, the company had processed over 18 000 t of kimberlite from all seven major pits and had recovered 301.44 ct to give an average grade of 1.87 ct, in line with prior estimates.

Subsequently, 211.22 ct was exported under Kimberley Certificate protocols in July and was currently undergoing valuation, while the last export contained an 8.86 ct stone – the largest to date – recovered in April.

This followed a January valuation of the initial 90.22 ct that was exported, which returned values for two individual diamonds in excess of $2 300/ct and $1 800/ct, with the largest stone weighing 6.3 ct.

Doyle said the results at Lemphane continued to demonstrate the characteristics of other low-grade Lesotho kimberlites, from which “exceptionally” large diamonds had been recovered.

“In addition, the overall value is highly influenced by the presence of large, high-value stones, which makes it imperative that a sufficiently large representative sample of the kimberlite is collected and processed effectively to guarantee full recovery of these large stones,” he asserted.

Paragon announced in May that it had conditionally raised £1.55-million by way of a subscription by existing and new shareholders, and would channel these funds into the continued development of Lemphane.