Modern Mining June 2018

DIAMONDS

fairly regular basis. As an example, we’ve now decided not to pursue our Ontevreden pipe project, located near the mothballed Helam mine of Petra. This was a geophysical anomaly with great mineral chemistry and great geo- chemistry. Our drilling confirmed the existence of a kimberlite pipe but also showed that it was much smaller than anticipated and didn’t war- rant any further work.” Campbell makes the point that BOD is one of only a handful of junior diamond explorers operating in Botswana and South Africa. “In South Africa, the only other junior company undertaking diamond exploration is BlueRock Diamonds while in Botswana there are only two active juniors apart from ourselves – Pangolin Diamonds and Tsodilo Resources. While this doesn’t reflect well on the health of the dia- mond exploration industry in South Africa, the upside is that good ground is readily available.” Summing up, Campbell says BOD’s vision is to make the next commercial diamond dis- covery. “If we’re successful, the rewards could potentially be huge. The original shareholders in African Diamonds, which is really BOD’s pre- decessor company, got their investment back 25 times over. Certainly, this was an unusual case, given the incredible quality of AK6, and prob- ably unlikely to be repeated. Nevertheless, we in BOD believe there are good kimberlites still to be found and that we’re looking in the right places with the right partners using the right technology,” he concludes. 

the project and want to move it forward as soon as we can.” While most of its efforts will continue to be concentrated in Botswana and South Africa, BOD has now also taken small steps into Zimbabwe, recently announcing a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ with Vast Resources, which – among other things – oper- ates the Pickstone-Peerless gold mine in that country. In essence, the two companies have agreed to exchange information from past exploration on areas prospective for diamonds in Zimbabwe and work towards establishing a special purpose vehicle which will develop and exploit any diamond resources identified. “Zimbabwe represents a natural extension of our operations,” notes Campbell. “Like Botswana and South Africa, it lies on the Kaapvaal Craton, which is the most prospec- tive craton in the world for diamonds, and it is also very under-explored for diamonds. Vast is now mainly engaged in gold mining but it so happens that it is the owner of an excellent database relating to diamonds in Zimbabwe. We have built up our own database on diamonds in Zimbabwe so, between us, we have a great resource, which will serve to guide our efforts.” On the subject of diamond exploration generally, Campbell stresses the need for a com- pany such as BOD to have a generous pipeline of projects. “Inevitably, many prospects will not meet hurdle rates so one needs to accept that projects will fall out of the pipeline on a

In the field at Thorny River. The project area extends over 2 771 ha.

“Inevitably, many prospects will not meet hurdle rates so one needs to accept that projects will fall out of the pipeline on a fairly regular basis.”

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