Peregrine Completes Acquisition of DES Botswana Assets

Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. (TSX:PGD) announced that it’s completed its acquisition of all the shares of Diamexstrat Botswana (Proprietary) Ltd. (DES Botswana) from Diamond Exploration Strategies Ltd., a private UK-registered company.
DES Botswana is a private Botswana-registered diamond exploration and development company, and its main assets are eight diamond prospecting licenses covering 5,746 square kilometers in Botswana.
As quoted in the press release:

The transaction announced on March 30, 2015 between Peregrine and DES UK calls for the transfer of ownership of DES Botswana and all of its assets to Peregrine in consideration for the grant by Peregrine of a 1% gross overriding royalty (the “Royalty”) to DES UK on all precious stone mineral interests held at the time of closing and those which may be acquired in the future in specific target areas. The agreement allows for Peregrine to purchase the Royalty at various milestones as detailed on March 30, 2015.
All conditions of the agreement have now been met, including receipt of all government approvals, and the transaction has closed.

A 2015 drill program is planned for the DES Botswana assets:

The planned 2015 diamond exploration program will focus on target drilling, further target generation and ground truthing. The program is expected to commence in mid-July and continue until late November. The total budget for the 2015 work program is approximately CDN$300,000.
Target testing via rotary air blast (“RAB”) drilling will focus on the Moralane license. This license covers 664 km2 and hosts a compelling kimberlite indicator mineral (“KIM”) anomaly with associated isolated magnetic anomalies. Microprobe-confirmed KIM compositions define a unique, diamond-compatible signature that cannot be matched to indicators from known kimberlite clusters in the region. Previous operators in the area focused their drilling on the highest indicator mineral counts and did not have the benefit of incorporating the now available regional aeromagnetic data. Approximately 300 line kilometres of high resolution ground magnetics will be acquired and the results will be used to identify and prioritize drill collar locations. Approximately 500 metres of RAB drilling is planned to test four KIM-supported magnetic anomalies. The total budget for this component of the work program is approximately CDN$200,000.

Tom Peregoodoff, president and CEO of Peregrine, commented:

Working with the principals of DES Botswana, Peregrine has put together a cost-effective and focused exploration program for 2015. Peregrine’s VP, Technical Services, Dr. Grütter and the DES Botswana team have done a tremendous job in using our extensive and proprietary Botswana database to identify high priority targets in this mature diamond-producing terrain. The work program will commence in July and the drilling is expected to commence in September.

Click here to read the full Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. (TSX:PGD) press release.