PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Diamond miner Lucapa has recovered another special diamond from ongoing bulk sampling at its Mothae mine, in Lesotho.
The 11.88 ct diamond was recovered from the North zone, and is the first special diamond recovered from that section of the Mothae kimberlite pipe in the current bulk sample.
An 89 ct diamond was recovered from the South-East zone earlier, as well as a 25 ct stone from the Neck zone.
Lucapa MD Stephen Wetherall said on Monday that the special diamond recoveries were extremely encouraging and validated the company’s decision to commit to a concurrent bulk sampling programme to improve the resource as the new 150 t/h Mothae commercial diamond plant was being built.
Wetherall said that at the time of acquiring the project, Lucapa believed that there was potential upside to the programme, with the bulk sampling programme designed to deliver on that upside.
“To have already recovered special sized diamonds from early sampling tonnage in all three of these areas gives us great confidence we can achieve this goal. It also adds to our excitement as we advance construction of our new 150 t/h plant, which remains on track for commercial diamond production later this year, to complement the high-value production from our Lulo mine in Angola.”