Botswana Diamonds recently commenced work on its PL117 licence area in Orapa, Botswana with drilling expected to start before the end of the first quarter of the year.
Its geologists had completed the advance work and procured the necessary equipment, while Alrosa geologists are set to join them, in the coming weeks.
Botswana Diamonds chairperson John Teeling told Rough&Polished Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Mathew Nyaungwa that they were “very excited” working with Alrosa, which is the world leader today in diamond exploration and mining.
He said the JV was optimistic of discovering diamond bearing kimberlites in Orapa.
Teeling also noted that the company had since August 2012 lodged 25 applications with Botswana’s Department of Mines but mourned that progress was exasperatingly slow.
He also noted that the company recently dropped the Mozambique project due to excessive demands by the formal license holders in the country.
Botswana Diamonds had early last year entered into an option agreement with Morminas, a subsidiary of EIP Group of Portugal, to explore potential for alluvial and eluvial deposits, which may have been washed down from Zimbabwe’s Marange.
Morminas, holds a 100 per cent interest in two license blocks on the Save River in the southern African country.
Below are the excerpts.
Botswana Diamonds has commenced work on its PL117 license area in Orapa. Are you optimistic of finding new diamond bearing kimberlites?
I have always been optimistic by nature, but four decades in exploration have also made me realistic. Exploration, especially for diamonds, is extremely difficult. We say it is high risk but what is means it that the odds are stacked against you severely from the start. Only one in a thousand kimberlites discovered will be a mine. Drilling, as I have said many times before is the only true lie detector in exploration.
That said, Botswana Diamonds is in a unique situation. Firstly we operate in Botswana, the home of kimberlites in Africa; secondly we are in Orapa which is the most prospective region with around 80 kimberlites already discovered; and thirdly we have the Russian major, Alrosa, as our JV partners there.
In 2004 we discovered on PL117, with Debswana, the AK10 kimberlite, within a month of our discovery of AK6 which is now the hugely successful Karowe mine. So we know there is a kimberlite body on PL117 already. AK6 was too good, and so we pursued AK6 and dropped AK10.
What we are now looking at is whether AK10 is bigger or indeed there is another kimberlite there too. We have strong (geological) indications that it is worthwhile reviewing this. Without knowing the history of PL117, Alrosa picked up on this area from the data we provided them which is very telling of their ability to identify kimberlite. Technically and professionally they are an extremely strong partner for exploration in Botswana.
We start the work on the ground now.
How excited are you working with ALROSA on this project?
Very excited, but we have a lot of work still to do. Alrosa is the world leader today in diamond exploration and mining; they hold the world’s largest diamond reserves and mine over 95 percent of all the diamonds in Russia; and in Africa they own a third of Catoca mine in Angola. To give you a perspective, Alrosa produced around 36 million carats of diamonds in Russia in 2013. In 2012 Botswana produced 20 million carats.
We have had a technical co-operation with Alrosa for over two years now, whereby we have shared geological data with them and discussed priority targets collectively in the Orapa region. This culminated in the actual JV agreement which was signed in August 2013. PL117 is one of hopefully many exploration projects we will undertake under the JV.
The fact that Alrosa has now entered Botswana can only be a good thing for Botswana. It is a wonderful opportunity for Botswana, a country still heavily reliant on diamond revenue; an opportunity that should be recognized at the highest levels and embraced wholeheartedly.
Your company lodged applications for licenses in the Orapa region, in Botswana. What is the progress?
Since August 2012 we have lodged 25 applications with the Department of Mines. Progress has been frustratingly slow and we have been given a variety of excuses along the way. For explorers it is critical to have ground. We appointed a local consultant to assist us with the process but problems at the DoM have resulted in a lack of clarity and lead-times of up to a year on simple license applications. As I understand it, we are not the only company to have faced these delays.
We have gained some ground, but not enough yet. Where we cannot access ground because it is already held by others we consider earn-in arrangements where appropriate.
I firmly believe that it is in the interests of Botswana to have companies such as Botswana Diamonds and Alrosa willing to be active in exploration and spending money on the ground. If, or rather when, we find something worthy of development (as we did with our discovery of the Karowe diamond mine) it will be of economic significance to the country and therefore should be encouraged.
We still have multiple applications lodged and wait patiently in the hope of timely and expeditious consideration.
Botswana Diamonds indicated that it had obtained its first ground in the Orapa region and work was expected to commence in the third quarter of the year. Can you provide an update on this plan?
In the second half of last year we were severely constrained by short-term finances which impacted on our ability to advance our own exploration work, plus we were also awaiting the award of some key target PLs, for the Alrosa JV, which have not happened to this date. However we did receive some new ground in the form of PLs 166 and 167 in September. For now we remain focused on advancing what we have but also accessing the highest priority targets. We are still working on this.
Botswana Diamonds signed a joint venture agreement with Eversharp Investments over the PL 117/2011 license in the Orapa area of Botswana, last month. What is the progress recorded from the detailed work that you commenced on the block?
We signed the JV with Eversharp in July 2013. As I mentioned earlier we know this ground already from the discovery of the AK10 kimberlite on it in 2004. Since July last year we have developed the work programme, agreed the detailed budgets, commenced procurement and finalized all work in advance of groundwork commencing.
In effect the real work on the ground starts now. The teams are mobilizing with four specialists arriving in the coming days from Russia. Next we will undertake further soil sampling, geophysical and geochemical work to define exact drill targets, with drilling expected to commence before the end of the first quarter this year.
What is unique about this license area?
It falls within the Orapa region – home to four producing diamond mines and around 80 discovered kimberlites. PL 177 contains the already discovered AK10 kimberlite, which is known to contain diamonds.
You said end of July last year that Botswana Diamonds was farming into the Brightstone 13 license block because you were confident of finding previously unknown kimberlites. Is this still the feeling having started detailed work on the targets?
We know that this large area of 13 licenses (6518 sq km), which falls in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) and is held by Brightstone, is of high prospectivity. That is why we pursued it. Indeed in July we signed an Option Agreement so that we could formally look at the ground. Since then we have analyzed in great detail the previous data on the specific ground, and have identified key areas where we would like to conduct advanced exploration work. To that effect a detailed work programme is currently being developed.
Of course we remained constrained by funding which restricts our ambitions somewhat, but we do believe, and this is reinforced by our work thus far, this ground contains important anomalies, which indicates the potential still for new kimberlite discoveries.
Can you provide an update on your Mozambique project?
We have dropped the Mozambique project due to excessive demands by the formal license holders there. It is an area we would like to pursue, but only under the correct commercial terms for a junior explorer such as ourselves.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
