Lucapa Diamond Company Limited announced that it recently recovered a 12 carat diamond   from the North zone of the Mothae diamond mine in Lesotho during its recent bulk sampling programme. The miner said that this proves that all three zones covered in the current programme contain special-sized (>10.8 cts) diamonds.

Mothae is owned 70% by Lucapa with the Govt of Lesotho holding the remaining 30%.

The 11.88 carat diamond that was recently recovered from the North zone and is the first Special recovered from that section of the Mothae kimberlite pipe

With this, all three zones sampled have produced Specials - an 89 carat was the largest special recovered from the South-East zone and a 25 carat was also recovered from the Neck zone, the Company said.

The Mothae kimberlite pipe is a high-quality diamond resource located within 5km of Letšeng, the highest US$ per carat kimberlite diamond mine in the world.

Lucapa Managing Director Stephen Wetherall said the Special diamond recoveries were extremely encouraging and validated Lucapa’s decision to commit to a concurrent bulk sampling program to improve the resource as the new 150 tonne per hour Mothae commercial diamond plant was being built).

Said Wetherall, “The concurrent Mothae bulk sampling program was planned to provide additional data over and above the information used to compile the original JORC resource. Certain areas of the kimberlite pipe which hadn’t historically been sampled (Neck zone), or where there had been very limited historical testing (South-East and North zones), were thought to be underestimated as a result. At the time of acquisition, we believed there was much upside here and this program is designed to deliver that upside.”

He added that the discovery gives “great confidence we can achieve this goal. It also adds to our excitement as we advance construction of our new 150 tph plant, which remains on track for commercial diamond production later this year to complement the high-value production from our Lulo mine in Angola.”

Pic caption: The 11.88 carat diamond recovered from the North zone at Mothae