Venus Metals Corporation's (ASX: VMC) focus is to explore for world-class mineral deposits. Twenty one multi-commodity exploration project targets are held within Western Australia and include Iron Ore, Diamonds, Base Metals and Gold.
Venus Metals Corporation purchases diamond processing plant at Argyle Smoke Creek
Venus Metals Corporation (ASX: VMC) has purchased a containerised, modular diamond processing plant for the company’s Argyle Smoke Creek Alluvial Diamond Project in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
The company can increase revenue and lower costs building economies of scale through the downstream vertical integration of its business as Venus controls the inputs used at the processing plant.
Smoke Creek hosts a JORC Inferred Resource of five million carats. The resource is estimated at 17.9 million tonnes at an average grade of 28 carats per hundred tonnes diamonds for five million carats.
The processing plant comprises three modules incorporating a scrubbing and screening module, a 10 tonne-per-hour dense medium separation module and a dual – X – Ray diamond recovery module.
The plant, constructed in South Africa in 2008 for an alluvial diamond project there that did not go forward, is currently in transit and scheduled to arrive in Fremantle in early June.
The company has also planned for a bulk sampling program to commence at the end of June.
Importantly, Smoke Creek contains the same diamondiferous gravels to those already mined by Argyle at upper Smoke Creek. As well as potentially offering a new source of genuine, Kimberley Process compliant, issue-free Australian diamonds including the rare pinks.
Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO, NYSE: RIO, LON: RIO) operates the cutting and polishing of pink diamonds produced at the Argyle Diamond Mine which are sold as loose polished diamonds under the Argyle Pink Diamonds brand.
The Argyle Diamond Mine is located within 20 kilometres to the southwest of Venus's Smoke Creek deposit.
