Botswana Diamonds seeks mining permit for Thorny River project

Botswana Diamonds has announced that it will proceed to seek the mining permit for its Thorny River Open Pit Mining in South Africa as it has seen the commercial viability on the project. In its evaluation report which was meant to identify the best open pit mining option, the company indicated that the drilling results show that the two pits have the potential to add volumes and impetus to a ‘ hub and spoke’ mining model and this is scheduled for the dry Southern African winter season.

“Following this, the mine plan will be updated, and the capital expenditure assessed. Subsequently, it is expected that mine permitting will then be sought.” Botswana Diamonds is a Botswana Stock Exchange quoted company. Botswana Diamonds Managing Director, James Campbell stated that the conceptual open pit evaluation shows that even at low revenue factors the kimberlite is potentially commercial when applying current industry standard mining and processing costs.

“The purpose of this exercise was to determine whether there was commercial potential in the Thorny River discoveries. This exercise will be updated following drilling on the adjacent high priority targets” BoD Chairman, John Teeling said the evaluation shows that there is potential for an open pit mine at Thorny River and that there is the potential for operational positive cash flow even at low levels of diamond recovery. “We will continue to work on the project including determining the capital cost. We anticipate that drilling in the coming months will extend mineable kimberlite volume”