PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Diamond miner Lucapa has restarted scaled operations at its Mothae kimberlite diamond mine, in Lesotho.
The operation has been on care and maintenance since March this year, since lockdown and isolation measures were enforced by the South Africa government, to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Lucapa on Thursday said that Mothae has now resumed mining and treatment operations, with mining operations to be scaled to approximately 75% of the nameplate capacity, owing to Covid-19 protocols, which remain in place.
“Mothae is an important contributor to the Basotho nation and Lucapa and the government of Lesotho are excited to have most of our teams and contractors back at the mine. We look forward to implementing recently approved marketing initiatives that will see additional value derived from the Mothae high-value production,” said Lucapa MD Stephen Wetherall.
Lucapa in September announced that diamond produced from Mothae would now be sold at full and transparent rough market value into direct offtake arrangements with diamantaires, allowing the implementation of value accretive polishing partnerships where Mothae would see additional benefit accruing in the form of shared polished margins from beyond the mine gate.
This could see Mothae mine production increase by some 60%, and could result in substantial increases in the mine’s contribution to stakeholders.