The South African diamond company DiamondCorp reported that it has completed bulk testing at the Lace kimberlite pipe at the 75m level with approximately 11,380 tons of kimberlite treated for the recovery of 808.21 carats of diamonds. According to Mineweb.net, This represents a recovered grade of 7.1 diamond carats per hundred tons.

While the diamond quality recovered at the kimberlite pipe was high, the Lace diamond mine processing plant will remain on care and maintenance.

DiamondCorp Managing Director and CEO Paul Loudon stated: ‘‘Economic kimberlite above the -240m level and outside our formal resource base would have been a great bonus in delivering early cash flow. However, we will now focus our efforts on accessing the 6.57 million tons of kimberlite between the -240m and -345m levels, and the Inferred Resource of 28 million tons of kimberlite estimated to exist between the -345m level and the -855m level, which contains an estimated 12 million carats of high-quality, high-value diamonds at an estimated grade of 42 cpht.”