{"id":1105642,"date":"2019-03-15T12:58:56","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T12:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=976553"},"modified":"2019-03-15T15:58:56","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T15:58:56","slug":"lucapa-finds-fourth-50-carat-diamond-at-recently-opened-mothae-mine-in-lesotho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1105642","title":{"rendered":"Lucapa finds fourth +50 carat diamond at Mothae mine in Lesotho"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s Lucapa Diamond (ASX:LOM) has recovered an 83.9 carat diamond<\/a> from its recently commissioned Mothae\u00a0mine in Lesotho, Africa.<\/p>\n

The stone is the fourth diamond over 50 carats the company has recovered to date at its 70%-owned Mothae operation.<\/p>\n

While the find was not gem-quality, Lucapa says it continues to underline the large-stone nature of the kimberlite resource.<\/p>\n

Commercial production at the mine, which the Perth-based company\u00a0acquired in early 2017<\/a>, began in December<\/a> via a\u00a0new 1.1 million tonne-per-year plant<\/a>\u00a0that is progressively ramping up to its nameplate capacity.<\/p>\n

While the 83.9 carat diamond was not gem-quality, Lucapa says the find continues to underline the large-stone nature of the kimberlite resource.<\/q><\/p>\n

The government of Lesotho owns the remaining 30% of Mothae, which is located 5km from Let\u0161eng, the world\u2019s\u00a0highest dollars-per-carat kimberlite diamond<\/a>\u00a0operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are highly encouraged that the coarse size fraction in our recently commenced commercial production through the new 1.1-million-tonne-a-year Mothae plant is reinforcing why Lucapa invested in this second high-value resource to complement production from the Lulo mine in Angola,\u201d said managing director\u00a0Stephen Wetherall.<\/p>\n

Lucapa plans to update guidance for the mine in respect of volume, grade and price in the June quarter after the first quarter of commercial mining operations.<\/p>\n

Mothae is currently expected to yield 22,000 carats per year.<\/p>\n

Lucapa also has a 40% stake in the prolific Lulo mine in Angola, a source of the world\u2019s highest dollar-per-carat alluvial diamonds.<\/p>\n

Currently, the company is advancing two exploration projects in well-known diamond districts. One is at Brooking in the West Kimberley lamproite province of Western Australia. The other is a the Orapa Area F project in its namesake mine in Botswana, where it plans to drill kimberlite targets this year.<\/p>\n

Shares in the company closed at 19 Australian cents on Friday, 2.7% higher than the previous day, though it remains near its year-low of 16.5 cents and well below last May’s high of 31 cents.<\/p>\n

The post Lucapa finds fourth +50 carat diamond at Mothae mine in Lesotho<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the 83.9 carat rock was not gem-quality, Lucapa says the find continues to underline the large-stone nature of the kimberlite resource.<\/p>\n

The post Lucapa finds fourth +50 carat diamond at Mothae mine in Lesotho<\/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":[797,798,506,526,799,404,369],"tags":[9,15,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105642"}],"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=1105642"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1105700,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105642\/revisions\/1105700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1105642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1105642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1105642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}