News

January 28, 2008

Diamondcorp Survives Power Cuts and Lightning Strikes to Maintain Production

By Rob Davies

Mining is a difficult enough business without acts of god interfering with production. Paul Loudon, Managing Director of Diamondcorp, spoke to Minews recently and ran through some of the problems he and his team have faced at the Lace Mine in the Free State Province of South Africa. Unseasonably high rainfall, lightning strikes, and power outages closely followed by power surges which then damage electrical equipment have been among the challenges thrown at the team commissioning production from the company’s tailings project. Despite these problems in the six months to December 2007 the mine plant produced 25, 266 carats from 324,045 tonnes of tails to give an average grade of 7.8 carats per hundred tonnes (cpht). Of that about two thirds were gem quality and 8,574 carats were sold for an average price of $64 a carat. That makes the operation self sufficient in cash flow terms.

Knowing that the recovery plant works gives Paul and his team the confidence and the data to start accessing primary material from the kimberlite pipe underground. To do that a ramp will be sunk into the pipe to allow a bulk sample to be taken. At the moment Diamondcorp is using a rule of thumb that grades in the kimberlite will be two and half times that found in the tailings. That means up to 27 cpht with a valuations possibly as high as $120 a carat. None of that will be known until the...