DiamondCorp Increases Resource at Lace Mine

DiamondCorp plc (LSE:DCP) released a new technical report and resource statement for its 74-percent-owned Lace mine in South Africa.
The total resource in the main Lace pipe is now estimated at 38.48 million tonnes at the 920-meter level — that’s an uptick of 16 percent from the March 2012 estimate, which was calculated for the 855-meter level.
Highlights include:

• The report concludes that the updated resource/reserve statement is a conservative base case with compelling evidence that considerable grade and value per carat upside is likely which will be defined with additional production and evaluation data.
• When comparing to the previous mineral resource estimate prepared for the Lace mine in March 2012, it is important to note that the estimated recovered grade for all facies has now been aligned with the Lace production plant utilizing 1.25 mm slotted bottom screens, compared to 1.00 mm screens in its original design configuration.
• While the increase in bottom screen sizes means that recoveries will be significantly lower in terms of grade, the carat value of those diamonds recovered will be higher as the smallest diamonds no longer being recovered are also the lowest value diamonds. So while the impact on recovered grade resulting from the change can be perceived as significant, the economic impact is minimal.
• 1.25 mm has been determined as the optimum bottom cut-off screen size for the project based on trade off studies undertaken by the Company. The change in screen size is expected to result in considerable operational efficiencies and (in conjunction with optical and x-ray waste sorting) up to a 50% reduction in water consumption in the processing plant, allowing for mining of the resource at greater than the current planned rate of 1.2 million tonnes per annum once block caving commences.
• The recoverable diamonds from this resource at the increased bottom screen size of 1.25 mm is estimated at 9.39 million carats (March 2012: 13.39 million carats, at 1.00 mm screen size).
• The average value of the Lace diamonds from the stone size frequency distribution achieved with the 1.25 mm bottom screen size has been forecast to be $164 per carat in the current market (March 2012: $160 per carat). Importantly, this price does not include any values achieved from the recovery of special stones, for which Lace was known during its previous production period pre-Great Depression, including diamonds up to 122 carats in size.

Click here to read the full DiamondCorp plc (LSE:DCP) press release.