JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - South African diamond explorer Thabex on Thursday announced that it would acquire Monastery Holdings at the end of February.

Thabex would buy the shares, to the value of R1,8-million, from Auret van Jaarsveld and Sidney Gasson, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Tradepost.

Tradepost planned to settle the purchase by issuing shares to the value of R1,2-million.

Monastery Holdings holds all the plant and equipment on the Monastery mine in the Free State. Tradepost has a 94,6% stake in the mine, and plans to carry out bulk sampling through the acquired company.

The acquisition would enable Tradepost to use and modify Monastery Holding's 140 t/h dense medium separator plant, to process the tailings dumps around the plant area and from the Monastery Kimberlite pipe.

In the early eighties, Monastery Holdings' plant produced 14 000 ct from the Monastry Kimberlite pipe.

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