Overview
Status | Care and Maintenance |
Mine Type | Open Pit |
Commodities |
|
Mining Method |
|
Production Start | ...  |
Mine Life | 10 years (as of Jan 1, 2020) |
Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent disruption of the market for diamonds, with the closure of Antwerp as a diamond market trading centre and a collapse in global demand, the Company made the difficult decision in April 2020 to place the Liqhobong Mine on an extended period of care and maintenance.
On 13 May 2022 was reached agreement with Senior Secured lender, Absa Bank, to provide new funds, on a super-senior basis, to facilitate the restart of the Liqhobong mine. As a result, the Company is now actively preparing for a recommencement of production and aims to reach positive cash flow in the autumn of 2022. |
Source:
Company | Interest | Ownership |
Firestone Diamonds plc
|
75 %
|
Indirect
|
Liqhobong Mining Development Company (Pty) Ltd.
(operator)
|
100 %
|
Direct
|
Liqhobong mine is operated by Liqhobong Mining Development Company (Proprietary) Limited ('LMDC'), which is 75% owned by Firestone Diamonds and 25% owned by the Government of Lesotho.
Contractors
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Summary:
The Liqhobong Mine lease area contains a cluster of at least five diamondiferous kimberlite bodies; namely the Main Pipe, Satellite Pipe, Discovery Blow, the Blow and a NW-SE striking dyke that is traceable from the perimeters of both the Main and Satellite Pipes. The surface areas of these pipes and blows are ~8.5 hectares, 1.6 hectares, 0.15 hectares and 0.1m hectares respectively. All the currently known five diamondiferous kimberlites of the Liqhobong cluster are within a strike length of at least 2.5 km (Leroux, 2010). Both blows and the Satellite Pipe are generously endowed with kimberlite indicator minerals (KIMs) occurring as xenocrysts. The main pipe is comparatively less enriched in the kimberlite indicator minerals but has abundant olivine macrocrysts and mantle xenoliths, the latter which commonly bear the KIMs.
Summary:
The mining process at LMDC will be a conventional open-pit operation consisting of drill, blast, load and haul activities which will be carried out by a mining contractor. The pit design has been based on a split shell concept largely to defer waste stripping as much as possible while at the same time providing a double ramp system to mitigate the risk of ramp failure. The pit layout incorporates a concentric cut 1 which has been designed around the existing exposed pit bottom. Four successive split shell cuts follow, namely Cut 2 South, Cut 2 North, Cut 3 South and Cut 3 North. Each split shell cut will have its own ramp system, however once the north cut meets up with its respective south cut, the ramps join to become a concentric system.
The waste and ore mining fleet is planned to commence with 40 tonne ADT’s with a matching excavator. As waste tonnes increase from year five, a CAT 777 (90 tonne) truck or equivalent will be phased in. Haul roads in the pit have been designed at a width of 25m to accommodate the larger trucks and will be at a gradient of 1:10. The ADT ore fleet will continue throughout the LoM and ramp widths in the kimberlite zones will be 17m.
All kimberlite ore will be trucked and tipped into the primary crusher located 560m from the edge of the current pit. The front-end arrangement allows for direct tipping into a crusher tipping bin fitted with an 800mm aperture grizzley and rock- breaker. The crusher bin has a live capa ........

Source:

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Flow Sheet:
Summary:

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Production:
Commodity | Units | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
Diamond
|
carats
| ......  | ......  | 835,832 | 365,891 |
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Operational Metrics:
Metrics | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
Total tonnes mined
| ......  | 8,107,241 t | 6,713,204 t | 3,751,387 t |
Ore tonnes mined
| ......  | 3,664,315 t | 3,802,568 t | 1,966,493 t |
Waste
| ......  | 4,442,926 t | 2,910,636 t | 1,784,894 t |
Tonnes processed
| ......  | 3.7 Mt | 3.8 Mt | 2 Mt |
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Reserves at June 30, 2020:
Stated at a bottom cut-off of 1.25mm slotted apertures.
Category | Tonnage | Commodity | Grade | Contained carats |
Indicated
|
22.898 Mt
|
Diamond
|
22 cpht
|
5.082 M carats
|
Inferred
|
48.399 Mt
|
Diamond
|
24 cpht
|
11.423 M carats
|
Total Resource
|
71.297 Mt
|
Diamond
|
23 cpht
|
16.505 M carats
|
Type | Material | Diameter | Length | Description |
Corporate Filings & Presentations:
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