Lucapa Diamond Company Limited announced recently that it had concluded the process for procuring a funding package valued at up to A$ 19 million “to fund the acquisition and advancement of the high value Mothae kimberlite diamond project in Lesotho, southern Africa”.
Explaining the details of the agreement, Lucapa said: “The funding package includes the underwriting of LOMOA options, a bridging loan and the issue of new options. When combined with the cash repatriated from the Lulo diamond mine in Angola …., the funding package leaves Lucapa on track to commence commissioning Mothae in the first quarter of 2018 under a staged, low-risk development plan.”
Like its existing alluvial diamond mine Lulo, the Company considers Mothae to be a premium-quality diamond asset and expects its production to complement the production from Lulo, which, Lucapa said, “delivered the world’s highest average US$ per carat prices in 2016”.
The bulk sampling results and the location of the project further underlines this belief. “Mothae has recovered large and valuable diamonds from historical bulk sampling and is located in the heart of the highest-price cluster of kimberlite diamond mines in the world – within 5 km of Letseng (the highest $ per carat kimberlite mine in the world) and close to the Liqhobong and Kao mines,” the Company stressed. “Lucapa is able to commit to developing Mothae because the 8.8 hectare kimberlite pipe has been well defined through drilling and trial mining. The trial mining produced more than 23,000 carats of diamonds, which included individual stones of up to 254 carats and Type IIa diamonds which achieved actual sale prices of up to US$ 41,500 per carat.”
Further, Lucapa noted, that an independent JORC resource estimate for Mothae put it at more than 1 million carats of diamonds at a modelled average diamond value of US$ 1,063 per carat – “the second highest JORC average price per carat in the world”.
The funding package comprises agreements for raising funds with two entities: Westar Capital Limited and First Class Securities Pty Ltd.
News Source: gjepc.org
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