Lucara Recovers 342-Carat Diamond at Karowe Mine

(IDEX Online News) – Lucara Diamond Corp. has recovered a 341.9-carat gem-quality diamond from its Karowe Mine in Botswana. The stone was recovered while processing fragmental kimberlite from the central and south lobe interface.

The company said that the Type IIa diamond shows exceptional color and clarity and will be sold along with two other diamonds exceeding 100 carats, which have also been recovered from the mine.

“The recovery of this magnificent stone once again confirms the quality of diamonds contained within the Karowe resource,” said president and CEO William Lamb. He added that the timing of the sale of these stones has yet to be decided.

The company also said that excellent progress continues to be made on Karowe’s plant optimization. Construction activities are essentially complete, while commissioning activities of the final sections has begun.

Tracer testing of the new XRT diamond recovery machines has also been completed. Lucara said a small volume of material was processed through the machines to check material handling aspects, leading to the recovery of a 7.8-carat diamond.

Lucara expects the new recovery and XRT sections to be integrated into the main treatment plant before the end of this month.

“The surprise recovery of the 7.8-carat diamond from the very small quantity of material processed during commissioning of the XRT machines demonstrates the excellent recovery capability of this exciting technology,” added Lamb.

“The final integration of the last sections into the process plant will provide improved mine planning flexibility and allow us to once again access material from all three lobes and more importantly provide the ability to mine sustainably from the high value south lobe in the future.”