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Lucapa hunts kimberlite source

ucapa Diamond Company Ltd is pulling indicator of proximity to source. Large dia- the south-west quadrant of Cacuilo Valley
Lout all the stops to uncover the source of monds could not have been transported where Lucapa’s mining operations are pre-
the high-value diamonds it has been con- very far. Heavy metal falls out early in a dominantly focused.
sistently recovering from the Lulo mine in transport process. Having drilled 120 of those anomalies
Angola for the best part of a decade. “Equally, irregular-shaped diamonds also and converted almost all into discovered
Despite being the world’s fourth largest could not have been transported very far. kimberlites, Lucapa is now preparing to
diamond producer, Angola remains signifi- Rounding occurs over tumbling and travel- undertake bulk sampling via a standalone
cantly underexplored due to its past and the ling for long distances, we are not recover- plant in a bid to recover commercial-size
source of its alluvial diamonds has not yet ing diamonds with those characteristics. diamonds.
been identified. Those all point to a close proximity. “We used to process the samples
Both De Beers and Rio Tinto Ltd have through our alluvial plant, however, there
returned to the country recently. was a significant opportunity cost in doing
Lucapa was responsible for recovering that,” Wetherall said.
the two largest diamonds ever found in An- “Every time we took the plant down to
gola and recently reported the discovery of process a kimberlite bulk sample, we could
a 170ct pink coloured stone from its Lulo not generate revenues and cash flows from
mine. alluvial operations. We have a number of
Speaking at Africa Down Under, Lucapa kimberlites to get through, therefore it was
managing director Stephen Wetherall de- better to have a standalone kimberlite bulk
tailed how the company plans to track down sampling plant to process these so we did
the source of the high number of diamonds not have that same opportunity cost on an
being recovered from its 3,000sq km con- alluvial operation.
cession in the diamondiferous kimberlite Stephen Wetherall “I’m pleased to say that construction is
Lunda Norte province. nearing completion, we should be entering
“It is significant in terms of what we be- “Frequency of recovery also matters be- into the commissioning phase very shortly
lieve is going to be discovered there,” Weth- cause what you recover above the ground and we’ll be putting through two [samples]
erall said. is a strong indicator of what potentially lies every six weeks.”
“Over eight years of consistent commer- below the ground.” Lucapa is also close to finalising a feasi-
cial mining, we have been recovering large, Geophysical surveys revealed as many bility study for its Merlin diamond project in
irregular-shaped and high value diamonds. as 500 diamondiferous anomalies on the the Northern Territory.
Size and shape matters because it’s an Lulo concession, including some 360 in
– Michael Washbourne

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT OCTOBeR 2022 Page 59