Image credit: Lucapa Diamond
This comes after the government of Lesotho introduced a new 14-day nation-wide lockdown due to a surge in COVID-19 cases.
Lucapa said mining and processing operations will be restarted when the lockdown ends.
“Our priority is to ensure the health and safety of our valued teams on site,” said Lucapa managing director Stephen Wetherall.
“The suspension is expected to be temporary in nature as it is a mine operational health and safety decision, not a market limitation.”
He also said Lucapa continues to engage with its financiers through this period as the diamond market continues its positive trajectory. Lucapa recently sold a parcel of 4,676 carats of rough diamonds from Mothae for $5.6 million or $1,198 per carat.
This was the highest average USD per carat price achieved by Mothae on the sale of any run of mine production parcel.
The sale included a 101 carat D colour diamond recovered following re-opening of the mine in the fourth quarter of 2020, which is the most valuable diamond recovered to date at Mothae.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
