{"id":1146166,"date":"2019-10-28T07:14:22","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T13:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1005374"},"modified":"2019-10-28T07:14:22","modified_gmt":"2019-10-28T13:14:22","slug":"south-africa-grants-botswana-diamonds-mining-permit-for-marsfontein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1146166","title":{"rendered":"South Africa grants Botswana Diamonds mining permit for Marsfontein"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Botswana Diamonds (LON:BOD)&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/polaris.brighterir.com\/public\/botswana_diamonds\/news\/rns\/story\/xl09pjx\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">said Monday<\/a>&nbsp;that&nbsp;it had received a mining permit for diamond-bearing gravels and residual unprocessed stockpiles around its Marsfontein mine in Limpopo, South Africa.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The company and partner Vutomi signed<br \/>\nin September&nbsp;a mining and processing deal with Eurafrican Diamond Corp<br \/>\n(EDC). Under the agreement, the latter will keep 25% of revenue from larger or<br \/>\nhigh value &#8220;special stones&#8221; from both Marsfontein and Thorny River.<br \/>\nIt will also be entitled to 15% from standard &#8220;run of mine&#8221; stones<br \/>\naccruing to Vutomi.<\/p>\n<p>The Marsfontein mine was operated for two years in the late 1990s, with a payback of its entire development costs in less than four days. The mine\u2019s grade was 172 carats per hundred tonnes, at a bottom cut-off of more than 1.2 mm, containing many fancy coloured diamonds.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>The mine was operated for two years in the late 1990s and surrounding deposits overlooked when the mine it closed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The surrounding deposits in<br \/>\nquestion were overlooked when the mine was closed.<\/p>\n<p>Botswana Diamonds said Cash flows<br \/>\nfrom Marsfontein will go towards funding other exploration&nbsp;work&nbsp;in<br \/>\nBotswana and South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Diamond miners are&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/mining.com\/web\/hunt-canadas-vast-diamond-riches-reaching-end\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">struggling across the board<\/a>, especially those producing<br \/>\ncheaper and smaller stones where there is an over-supply.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Buyers, those that polish and cut diamonds for retailers, have been hit this year by lower prices and tighter credit, prompting them to delay purchases. <\/p>\n<p>Retailer Tiffany\u2019s reported in August a&nbsp;3% decline in like-for-like sales, while shares in Signet, the world\u2019s largest retailer of diamond jewellery, have lost more than 60% of their value this year.<\/p>\n<p>De Beers, the world\u2019s top diamond<br \/>\nproducer by value, has responded by axing production \u2014 with a target of 31<br \/>\nmillion carats this year compared with 35.3 million in 2018. It has also<br \/>\nannounced it would spend more on marketing.<\/p>\n<p>At the latest sale, the<br \/>\ncompany&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/de-beers-steps-up-plans-to-boost-sales-to-let-buyers-reject-up-50-of-small-diamonds\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">increased the amount of stones buyers were allowed to reject<\/a>&nbsp;in<br \/>\neach lot purchased from 10% to 20%, according to people familiar with the<br \/>\nauction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The mine was operated for two years in the late 1990s and surrounding deposits overlooked when the mine it closed.<\/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":[369],"tags":[43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146166"}],"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=1146166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146167,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146166\/revisions\/1146167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1146166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1146166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1146166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}