JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim-listed Botswana Diamonds will start drilling at its recently discovered Ontevreden project, in South Africa, later this year.
In a project update released on Friday, the company said sampling at the Ontevreden kimberlite had found abundant G10, G9 and eclogitic garnets typically seen in high-grade kimberlite pipes.
"The exciting new kimberlite discovery at Ontevreden continues to entice. Samples from the surface contain significant quantities of G10 and G9 garnets – high-quality diamond indicator minerals frequently found at high-grade kimberlite pipes," chairperson John Teeling said in a statement.
Having discovered a kimberlite pipe at Ontevreden, the next step is to ascertain if it is diamondiferous.
The Ontevreden kimberlite pipe is close to Petra Diamonds' Helam mine, which has grades of more than 500 carats per hundred tonnes.