{"id":1109144,"date":"2019-04-04T11:08:38","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T11:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=979853"},"modified":"2019-04-04T11:08:38","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T11:08:38","slug":"lucapa-diamond-cuts-debt-related-to-building-mothae-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1109144","title":{"rendered":"Lucapa Diamond cuts debt related to building Mothae mine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia’s\u00a0Lucapa Diamond\u00a0(ASX:LOM) said Thursday it had signed funding and refinancing arrangements<\/a>\u00a0that will allow it to reduce debt related to developing<\/a> its recently commissioned Mothae\u00a0mine in Lesotho, Africa.<\/p>\n

The diamond producer has inked deals with New Azilian and Equigold, following the delivery and de-risking of Mothae, which began commercial production in December<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese new refinancing arrangements will provide Lucapa with added financial strength to continue to build our strategic position in this niche high-value diamond sector,\u201d managing director Stephen Wetherall said in the statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Perth-based\u00a0 miner has inked deals with New Azilian and Equigold, following the delivery and de-risking of the Lesotho-based diamond mine, which began commercial production in December.<\/q><\/p>\n

The Perth-based company, which\u00a0acquired Mothae in early 2017<\/a>, has a 70% interest in the operation, with the government of Lesotho owns the remaining 30% of Mothae, which is located only 5km from Let\u0161eng, the world\u2019s\u00a0highest dollars-per-carat kimberlite diamond<\/a>\u00a0mine.<\/p>\n

Lucapa has said it to update guidance for the mine in respect of volume, grade and price in the June quarter, after the first three months of commercial mining. For now, Mothae is expected to yield 22,000 carats per year.<\/p>\n

The company 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, Lucapa 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

Diamond miners are struggling across the board<\/a>, especially those producing cheaper and smaller stones where there is too much supply. In December, some of Rio Tinto\u2019s (LON, ASX: RIO) customers refused to buy cheaper diamonds, while De Beers has been\u00a0forced to cut prices and offer concessions<\/a>\u00a0to buyers.<\/p>\n

Last week, Africa-focused\u00a0Firestone Diamonds (LON:FDI) put plans to extend the life of its 75%-owned Liqhobong mine in Lesotho\u00a0on the back burner<\/a>, saying that current market conditions don\u2019t support the project.<\/p>\n

The post Lucapa Diamond cuts debt related to building Mothae mine<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The diamond producer has inked deals with New Azilian and Equigold, following the delivery and de-risking of the Lesotho-based mine, which began commercial production in December.<\/p>\n

The post Lucapa Diamond cuts debt related to building Mothae mine<\/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\/1109144"}],"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=1109144"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1109231,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109144\/revisions\/1109231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1109144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1109144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1109144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}