{"id":1093157,"date":"2019-01-08T17:20:38","date_gmt":"2019-01-08T17:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=962532"},"modified":"2019-01-08T17:20:38","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T17:20:38","slug":"lucara-diamond-to-focus-on-bostwana-mine-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1093157","title":{"rendered":"Lucara Diamond to focus on Bostwana mine this year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada\u2019s Lucara Diamond (TSX:LUC), the company that hit the jackpot in 2015 after finding the\u00a0world\u2019s second-largest diamond,<\/a> said Tuesday its priority this year<\/a> will be the completion of a feasibility study into potential underground production and life-of-mine expansion for its Karowe project, in Botswana.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving stabilized and significantly improved our mining operations at Karowe in 2018, Lucara is now focused on optimizing the base business and pursuing a suite of high potential,\u00a0organic growth opportunities,\u201d said Chief executive Eira Thomas in the firm\u2019s operating outlook for 2019.<\/p>\n

The Canadian miner expects to complete a feasibility study into potential underground production and life-of-mine expansion of Karowe.<\/q><\/p>\n

The Vancouver-based company has set aside $14.8 million to complete geotechnical and hydrogeological drilling programs this year, as well as economic and other studies that started in 2018.<\/p>\n

Lucara aims to recover between 300,000 and 330,000 carats from Karowe this year, out of 2.5-million to 2.8-million tonnes of ore processed, at an operating cash cost of between $32\/t and $37\/t processed.<\/p>\n

Commercial production Karowe began in 2012. Since then, it has produced an average of 320,000 carats a year from the treatment of 2.5 million tonnes a year of ore from three kimberlite lobes.<\/p>\n

The miner announced Tuesday that it plans to pay an annual dividend of C$0.10 per share, based on anticipated production growth and a forecast revenue of between $170 million and $200 million.<\/p>\n

Lucara also said it had sold $660,865 worth of its own diamonds on its recently-launched Clara online sales platform<\/a>, which is driven by blockchain technology.\u00a0It noted it obtained 8% more for the diamonds traded that way than Lucara\u2019s market price and 15% most than the reserve price placed on the goods.<\/p>\n

Clara allows buyers source rough diamonds tailored to specific polished gems demand, resulting in improved margins for both buyers and sellers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough we are delighted with the prices achieved for the rough diamonds sold in this first sale, Clara’s longer-term value will be realized through its’ scalability, increasing the volume of rough diamonds transacted by adding production from other global diamond producers,\u201d Thomas noted.<\/p>\n

Shares in Lucara were trading down 2.7% at C1.42 by noon ET.<\/p>\n

The post Lucara Diamond to focus on Bostwana mine this year<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Canadian miner expects to complete a feasibility study into potential underground production and life-of-mine expansion for Karowe.<\/p>\n

The post Lucara Diamond to focus on Bostwana mine this year<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[798,651,506,424,940,404,369,438,518],"tags":[9,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1093157"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1093212,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093157\/revisions\/1093212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1093157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1093157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1093157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}