Botswana Diamonds says the collapse of interest by investors in the AIM market in London has hurt all explorers.
Company chairperson John Teeling told investors that the pool of new investors had shrunk over the year, resulting in less exploration.
“Mines have finite, often short lives, so it is highly likely that a future scarcity of many minerals, including diamonds, will occur,” he said.
“The surviving producers should benefit. Botswana Diamonds has a loyal but dwindling cohort of investors.”
Teeling said they have sought to generate revenue, thereby avoiding fundraising and developing late-stage projects such as Thorny River.
Botswana Diamonds intends to bring the Thorny River diamond ground into operation in 2024.
Thorny River is estimated to contain between 1.2 million and 2.1 million tonnes of ore at an expected grade of between 46 and 76 carats per hundred tonnes.
The diamond value per carat is expected to be between $120 and $220 per carat, said Teeling.
Meanwhile, Teeling said they believe strongly that more deposits will be discovered in Botswana.
“But we are not blind to other opportunities,” he said.
“We continue to spend time and money in Zimbabwe, which is long known to have diamond potential. We have made some progress. We continue to look at older discoveries and former mines in South Africa where, by the application of new thinking and technology commercially viable projects can be found.”
Teeling said Botswana Diamonds was granted a prospecting licence on the Reivilo cluster of kimberlites in South Africa and has acquired a library of data on the kimberlites in return for a 3% royalty.
The company is currently reviewing the data.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
