Lucapa Diamond Company has secured US $10m for the sale of alluvial diamonds from its Lulo mine in Angola, central Africa. The run-of-mine diamonds, which totalled approximately 11.15 kilograms, achieved an average price of US $1800 per carat.
Several more high-value Lulo diamonds — including a 130-carat type IIa diamond and 45-carat pink — are still being held as inventory by partner Sociedade Mineira Do Lulo (SML), which is operated and 40% -owned by Lucapa.
SML plans to expand Lulo’s plant throughput by 50% to around 450,000 bulk cubic metres by 2020. The company upgraded Lulo’s JORC resource in January by 90% to 80,400 in-situ carats at an average price of US $1,420 a carat.
It is Western Australia-based Lucapa’s fourth diamond tender in 2019, following two auctions in February and a third in May.
It is also the second tender of the year from the company’s Lulo mine. The first auction, which took place via electronic tender in Luanda, Angola in February, remains the company’s largest sale of the year so far. It managed to secure US $16.7m for the sale of seven large diamonds at an average price of US $33,530 a carat.
The other two auctions related to the sale of diamonds from Lucapa’s other African mine, the Mothae kimberlite joint venture project between Lucapa for 70% and the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho in southern Africa for the remaining 30%.
These sales took place in Antwerp, Belgium in February and May, and a total of US $5.3m and US $3.5m respectively.
Lucapa launched commercial production of Mothae in January this year. The company is also progressing two early-stage exploration projects: Orapa Area F in Botswana and Brooking in Western Australia.
