Modern Mining March 2019

feature DIAMOND MINING Paul Bosma, CEO of Firestone Diamonds.

Poor diamond market challenges

The Liqhobong diamond mine of AIM-listed Firestone Diamonds, which entered commercial production in mid-2017, is performing extremely well on an opera- tional level but remains challenged by a dollar-per-carat diamond price which is currently substantially below what was originally envisaged when the mine was under development. Modern Mining’s Arthur Tassell recently spoke to the company’s CEO, Paul Bosma, to learn about how the mine, located in the Maluti mountains of Lesotho, is responding to the difficult market conditions.

L iqhobong is one of four mines – the others are Letšeng, Kao and Mo- thae – that currently constitute Lesotho’s diamond mining sector and is by far the big- gest in terms of carat production, with approx- imately 835 000 carats being produced at an operating cost of US$11,62 per tonne treated in the year ended 30 June 2018 (FY-2018). By contrast, Letšeng, which can probably claim to be the ‘flagship’ of Lesotho’s diamond mining industry, has a production currently running at around 126 000 carats a year (although it re-

ceives a phenomenal average price for its dia- monds of typically well above US$2 000 per carat). The Liqhobong mine exploits – via open-pit methods – an 8,6 ha Main Pipe (there is also a Satellite Pipe on the property) which hosts a total resource of just over 17 million carats (Mct) at a grade of 23 cpht and a probable ore reserve of 5,3 Mct at 23 cpht (as of 30 June 2018). Firestone, which owns 75 % of Liqhobong with the Government of Lesotho holding the balance, acquired the asset in 2010 fromKopane Diamonds (previously European Diamonds) for US$71 million. Kopane mined the satellite pipe

28  MODERN MINING  March 2019