Modern Mining October 2016

DIAMONDS

the structural, mechanical, piping and plate- work or SMPP (SMEI Projects). Moving forward, Firestone has taken the decision to operate the process plant itself while the mining will be undertaken on a con- tractor basis. A long-term mining contract is still to go out to tender but, in the interim, TCL will fulfill the role. An experienced production team to run the mine has been appointed and it will be led by Paul Bosma, yet another ‘graduate’ of De Beers, with Ernst du Plessis as Engineering Manager and Gideon Scheepers as Metallurgical Manager. Brown is confident that the team has the right qualifications to make a success of the mine. As he told the media group, “We’ve built this mine properly and we’re going to run it properly as well.” Liqhobong will be Lesotho’s third operating diamond mine, after Letšeng and Kao, the lat- ter operated by Namakwa Diamonds subsidiary, Storm Mountain Diamonds. Three advanced projects are Lemphane, owned by Paragon Diamonds, Mothae, previously in the Lucara stable but now in the hands of the Government of Lesotho, and Kolo, owned by French com- pany Batla Minerals. Liqhobong, Letšeng, Kao and Lemphane are all located close to each other in the Lemphane-Robert kimberlite belt while Kolo is located 38 km south-west of Maseru in the Mafeteng District. Report by Arthur Tassell, photos courtesy of Firestone Diamonds

Brown pointed out at the media briefing, how- ever, this is a conservative estimate and could be lifted depending on the occurrence of large stones, as Firestone has not factored in any- thing above 100 carats into its figures. He also noted that Liqhobong has a good population of ‘fancy yellows’ – with one stone recovered from the trial mining campaign having sold for a price translating into US$10 000/carat. Commenting on the reasons Firestone has been successful in its development of Liqhobong, Brown said a key factor was that it had assembled the right team – with col- lectively over 200 years of mine development experience – to construct the project. He noted that a critical appointment early on (in February 2014) was that of his long-term col- league at De Beers, Glenn Black, as Chief Project Officer. Before leaving the Group in 2012, Black enjoyed a long 22-year career with De Beers, during which time he worked on major proj- ects in Namibia, South Africa (the Voorspoed mine, among others), Canada and Botswana. He reportedly successfully delivered nine of the largest and most complex projects undertaken during this period by De Beers. Brown said Firestone had also appointed well qualified contractors, all of whom had “bought in to Firestone’s culture”. DRA was selected in 2014 as the EPCM contractor while other awards included the residue storage facil- ity or RSF (Turnkey Civils Lesotho or TCL), the civils and earthworks (Stefanutti Stocks) and

Comparing this early view of the site (late 2014) with our photo on page 22 shows just howmuch Firestone has accomplished over the past two years.

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