TSX-V-listed Tsodilo Resources has delivered the first two parcels of diamonds from its BK16 kimberlite project, in the Orapa Kimberlite Field, in Botswana, to Lucara Diamond’s acid cleaning laboratory, in Gaborone, for cleaning.

The parcels comprise 101 diamonds weighing 18.57 ct and 130 diamonds weighing 17.79 ct.

The diamonds will be stored at secured facilities located at the Diamond Technology Park, in Gaborone, after cleaning has taken place.

QTS-Kristal Dinamika South Africa’s Ray Ferraris has been retained to initiate a size frequency distribution (SFD) study, as well as a diamond reconstruction and breakage study (DRB) after the diamonds have been acidised.

The SFD study, Tsodilo noted, is used to predict the diamond size frequency in a diamond deposit and contributes significantly towards the estimation of expected revenue.

The DRB study’s purpose is to then establish a first-order profile for the extent and nature of diamond breakage related to natural or imposed industrial causes.

The latter, in particular, Tsodilo said, relates to sample recovery and processing which may have been caused by the large diameter drilling (LDD) programme, as well as the breakage which may have occurred as the kimberlite samples were processed through the dense media separation (DMS) treatment plant.

Diamond breakage could skew the SFD towards the finer sizes as larger diamonds are potentially broken into many smaller pieces.

The breakage study will also be compared with the parcel of historic diamonds that were recovered between 1999 and 2000 from previous operations.

PROCESSING AND RECOVERY PROCESS 
Further, Tsodilo highlighted that all 243 LDD samples and all historical tailings have now been processed through the company's DMS plant in Letlhakane, Botswana.

The DMS plant is currently processing tailings retreatment samples for audit purposes and this should be completed within the next two weeks.

The recovery unit, which has been established in the company's security area in Maun, has recently moved to a double shift operation of 15 hours a day to speed up the recovery process.

The recovery unit is sorting both the main LDD sample concentrates and the audit retreatment samples through the company's Bourevestnik (BV) Polus-M X-ray sorter.

The plus 3 mm BV concentrates will be re-crushed, screened and reprocessed through the X-ray unit to recover any locked-up diamonds in the 3 mm to 12 mm fraction.