New Lucapa Site Fails to Yield Viable Diamonds

RAPAPORT… Lucapa Diamond Company has failed to recover rough stones with sufficient commercial value from the Little Spring Creek exploration site at its Brooking lamproite mine in
Western Australia, it said Monday.



The miner launched its Brooking project in October, and has
since recovered 1,219 viable stones from the site. However, follow-up exploration
only turned up 11 diamonds, with a total weight of 0.284 carats. Even the bigger ones, above one millimeter, were not commercially viable.


Drilling at eight other target points at
Brooking also did not deliver any lamproite material, the miner said.


“While the trench sampling results indicate the Little
Spring Creek lamproite body is unlikely to be economic, the Brooking project
has been proven to host source rocks with extremely high numbers of diamonds,”
the company noted.


The miner will drill a further two targets it had previously
identified, and will consider an additional three it discovered from surveys of
the land.

Lucapa’s share price dropped 10% in early trading following the announcement. The company owns 80% of Brooking, with Leopold Diamond Company holding
the remaining 20%. The lampoite field lies 50 kilometers north of the Ellendale mine, which is famous for its fancy-color yellow diamonds


Image: Diamonds recovered from the Little Spring Creek bulk sample. (Lucapa Diamond Company)