Botswana Diamonds begins Thorny River drilling

London AIM and BSE-listed diamond explorer, Botswana Diamonds has commenced drilling on the recently discovered high-grade geophysical anomalies on Thorny River in South Africa.
It said the objective of the drilling programme is to discover additional blows on the Thorny River property to expand the resource and pave the way for a future mining license or permit application(s).  
It said a minimum of 10 reverse circulation drill holes are planned on four high-grade gravity anomalies and the most prospective target was identified by Subterrane, a UK-based specialist exploration research company.
“This is an important next step in our drive to establish a commercial operation at Thorny River,” said Chairman, John Teeling.
“We are hopeful that these additional holes will expand the resource base to allow a financial evaluation of the greater potential for the Thorny River diamond project.”
Drilling will take around two weeks to complete.
Botswana Diamonds said last April that the conceptual open pit evaluation shows that even at low revenue factors the kimberlite is potentially commercial when applying current industry-standard mining and processing costs.
It said at the time that assuming mid-range diamond values of $170 per carat, mid-range mining costs, a discount rate of 10%, a recovered grade of 40 carats per hundred tonnes and 1.7 million tonnes of kimberlite mined indicates that a mine is likely to be commercial.
The company also saw the potential for operational positive cash flow even at low levels of diamond recovery.

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