North America-headquartered miner Lucara Diamond Corporation expects to recover between 370 000 ct and 410 000 ct of diamonds from its Karowe mine, in Botswana, in 2020.
The company on Friday provided its operating guidance for next year.
Lucara will spend about $53-million on early works related to a proposed underground mine at Karowe. The company expects to make an investment decision in the second half of next year.
“Building on the strong operating performance achieved in 2019, Lucara will continue to focus in 2020 on optimising the base business, growing our digital sales platform Clara Diamond Solutions by adding third-party production to the platform and preparing for an underground expansion at Karowe, following the announcement of a positive feasibility study earlier this month.
“Anticipated cash flow from operations in 2020 should allow us to pursue early works which are critical to the underground development schedule, while at the same time allowing us to leverage our balance sheet to finance the project in a cost-effective manner,” explained president and CEO Eira Thomas.
She added that, following an inaugural diamond sale in December 2018 through Clara, diamond sales were held with increasing frequency during 2019 and the customer base increased to 27 participants.
The company expects further growth next year as more supply is made available through the platform, balanced with demand from the customers using the platform.
Third-party production should complement the diamonds from Karowe and should support increased transaction volumes through 2020.