Meya Mining, which was 51 percent owned by Trustco Resources, recently discovered a 476 carat diamond.
The diamond was discovered in an area spanning from the Kamara Gbense to the Tankoro chiefdoms in Kono District and an initial assessment indicated that the stone was the 29th largest diamond ever discovered.
Two other special diamonds of 19.70 carats and 27.93 carats were also discovered on the same day in the Kono District.
“Based on management’s experience and understanding of the geological setting within Meya Mines area of operation, Trustco Resources is confident that the geo-economic potential within EL 07/2015 will achieve the initial expectations,” it said.
“Thus, notwithstanding Meya Mine starting off as a greenfield exploration programme, the plan is to establish an optimal mine configuration that will enable Trustco Resources to evaluate the geo-economic potential of the resource within the exploration license, but then also to transition into trial mining immediately after phase 1 of the exploration programme has been completed.”
Meanwhile, Trustco said it had temporarily suspended diamond mining at the Northern Namibia Development Company (NNDC), as well diamond polishing operations at Morse Investments, pending the granting of a long-awaited mining licence by the mines ministry.
NNDC received a preparedness to grant letter for mining licence 156 from the mines ministry on 25 October 2017.
The mining licence was among other things conditional to approval of an environmental clearance certificate which in turn required a scoping study and an environmental management programme.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished