Lucara Diamond, which completed a trial mining programme at its Mothae project, said it now awaits the consent of the government of Lesotho to place the processing facility on care and maintenance.
This, it said, would help the company work towards completing a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) of the project.
The PEA, together with a NI43-101 compliant Independent Technical Report, was expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2013.
“The completion of the trial mining programme at Mothae marks a significant milestone in the project’s development,” said Lucara chief executive William Lamb.
Meanwhile, Lucara said it sold 4,657 carats of Mothae diamonds last week for gross proceeds of $1.51 million, yielding an average price per carat of $324.
It said that the diamond sale consisted of 32 sales parcels of which 26 were sold on a sealed tender in Antwerp.
The highest value stone sold was a 9.74 carat Type IIA diamond, which achieved a price of $272,720 or $28,000 per carat.
Lamb said Lucara had now sold in excess of 20,000 carats of Mothae diamonds, the results of which would form a solid foundation for revenue modeling in their economic evaluation of the project.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
