Botswana Diamonds Receives New Prospecting Licenses

Botswana Diamonds plc (LSE:BOD) announced that it has been awarded five new prospecting licenses in Botswana’s Orapa region.

As quoted in the press release:

These PLs (PL206-210/2014) are high priority target areas for Botswana Diamonds. The new licences cover a total area of 1,357 sq km and will be explored under the ongoing joint venture between Botswana Diamonds and Alrosa, the Russian diamond major.

The ground was identified as high priority by Alrosa. Two of the licences, PLs 206/2014 and 208/2014, are of particular interest because historically they posed exploration challenges due to depth of sand and swamp conditions. Neither contain known kimberlites but the Alrosa analysis indicates the presence of kimberlites.

John Teeling, chairman of Botswana Diamonds, commented:

This is the good news we have been waiting for. The new licence awards are important to Botswana Diamonds. We did not have rights over some of the targets identified by Alrosa. We now have some of the top targets on our licences. In particular ground to the north and west of the main Orapa area which has problems with swampy conditions and deep sand. Little exploration has been done on these areas with no known kimberlites to date. Alrosa believes the ground has kimberlites and that their technology and expertise will find them. While setting up the fieldwork program on the new ground we will be drilling PL117.

We have a joint budget of $1 million for 2014. We have funding for it.

Click here to read the full Botswana Diamonds plc (LSE:BOD) press release.