Lucapa Diamond conducted a drilling programme during the first half of 2024 at the Orapa exploration project in Botswana to confirm if kimberlite was present in a geophysical target at the project, but none was observed from the results.
It said no further work on this is planned.
The company’s exploration licence also expired in June 2024.
“The project will be classified as a discontinued operation for the financial reporting period,” it said.
Lucapa also placed the future of the Brooking exploration project in Australia under review.
The company selected further targets for testing this year following an extensive programme conducted in 2023.
It said certain targets or areas of interest were identified but require further work in the future.
Meanwhile, Lucapa said there is currently an oversupply of polished inventory globally, and some of the bigger producers are considering production cuts to allow a rebalance of the market.
It said high inflation and low demand from Chinese consumers are also hindering the recovery of the diamond market.
“These trends have so far had a minimal effect on Lucapa due to its large stone population,” said the miner.
Lucapa said the steady improvement in the rough diamond market seen at the end of 2023 continued into the first quarter of 2024 but slowed down thereafter.
“Good demand and stronger prices were achieved for diamonds larger than two carats, although this trend softened during the second quarter [of the year],” it said.
“However, there was ongoing strong demand for the production of Lucapa’s mines, in particular Type IIa diamonds above 10 carats.”
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief, Rough&Polished
