Expert sees low grade, but profitable kimberlites in Angola

A diamond consultant has said that any company willing to mine diamonds in Angola should be prepared to get low grades, but profitable kimberlites.
“There is nothing to worry about as the low grades are mainly Type 2 diamonds,” SRK Consulting Canada’s Herman Grutter told Angola’s International Diamond Conference last week in Saurimo.
“You can make money with Type 2 diamonds…northern Lesotho is a good example.”
He said the Letseng mine in Lesotho recorded a grade of 1.8 carats per hundred tonnes (cpht) and price of $1900 per carat, while Mothae registered a grade of 3.1 cpht and price of about $850/ct.
He said Angola has large kimberlite deposits in Angola that need attention.
Meanwhile, Grutter told the conference that diamonds from Angola had quality better than the global average and are similar to what is found in the southern African region.
Angola’s largest diamond mine, Catoca has a diamond deposit that occurred in a kimberlite pipe.
Lucapa recently recovered 13 diamonds with a total weight of 4.15 carats from the initial processing of the L028 kimberlite bulk sample at the Lulo concession.
The L028 sample of 2,192 bulked m3 was processed through the Lulo alluvial plant and the largest stone recovered was a 0.93 carat white diamond with the largest Type IIa diamond recovered weighing 0.59 carats.
The L028 sample represents the highest number of diamonds recovered from any of the kimberlites sampled in the Canguige catchment to date and follows on from the results obtained in the alluvial sample taken from the Canguige river in 2020, where 1,865 cubic metres of gravel yielded 30.3 carats of diamonds.

Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished