PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Diamond miner Lucapa has uncovered a 227 ct diamond at its Lulo project, in Angola.
The ASX-listed miner on Monday said the diamond is the second-largest recovered at Lulo to date, behind the 404 ct diamond uncovered in February 2016. It is the biggest diamond recovered to date from the new XRT large-diamond recovery circuit that was recently installed.
The 227 ct diamond, which is type IIa D in colour, is also the seventh diamond larger than 100 ct to be recovered at Lulo.
The latest find was recovered from Mining Block 28, which is some 4 km south of Mining Block 8, where the 404 ct diamond was recovered, and about 4 km from Mining Block 6, which delivered the other diamonds larger than 100 ct.
“It is fitting that, within a week of the anniversary of recovering Angola’s biggest diamond, we have now recovered Angola’s second biggest diamond on record,” said Lucapa MD Stephen Wetherall.
“We are also delighted to have recovered this spectacular diamond from a new mining area at Lulo which is 4 km from the prolific Mining Block 8 area. This further underlines the potential there is for the remainder of the 50 km stretch of the Caluilo river to continue to produce large valuable alluvial diamonds.”
Wetherall said it also reinforced the potential of the kimberlite programme that Lucapa was advancing at Lulo, which would soon involve three rigs drilling multiple priority targets in the areas where these diamonds were recovered.