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Kopane Diamond Reports 141% increase in indicated resource at Main Pipe in Lesotho

Published: 21:04 10 Sep 2009 AEST

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Kopane Diamonds initially rose more than 10% this morning as the highly anticipated resource update of the Liqhobong, Main Pipe project was announced. The new resource estimates forms part of Kopane’s Definitive Feasibility Study (‘DFS’), and was prepared by ACA Howe International Limited.


The revised resource calculation increased the total diamond resource at the ‘Main Pipe’ project, located in the Kingdom of Lesotho, Southern Africa. Today’s announcement follows intense speculation among investors after several press reports last weekend anticipated the significant resource statement, which sent the share price up over 100% on Monday morning.


The key revision was an increase in the projects grade confidence, the highlight being a substantial increase of 141% in the Indicated resources, to 38.6m tonnes. However, the indicated resource was at a reduced grade of 31 carats per hundred tonnes (cpht) compared to 33 cpht for the total (inferred and indicated) resource. Today’s update also identified the potential to increase the depth of a future open pit to 180 meters.


Additionally, following large diameter reverse circulation drilling there was an increase in the inferred resource to 51.47 million tonnes of kimberlite, to an average depth of 510 metres below surface.


Following today’s update the revised total resource for the main pipe is estimated to be over 90 million tonnes, a 19% increase on the previous interim resource statement in November.


The report takes the gross diamond resource to 29.7 million carats. Once the Kingdom of Lesotho retains its 25% share the new resource, Kopane’s gross diamond resource is 22.3 million carats, from which Kopane estimate an in-situ value of US$2.6bn, based on bulk sample diamond values in September 2008.


The updated interim resource results are significant for Kopane as they allow the company to demonstrate significantly higher confidence in the recoverable resource at the Main Pipe.


In the Pre-Feasibility Study in 2007, Kopane projected a processing rate of 3.5 million tonnes per annum, on which basis the revised indicated kimberlite category of 38.6m tonnes would represent over 15 years of production at over one million carats per annum.

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