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Lesotho
Liqhobong Mine

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 Location:
114 km NE from Maseru, Lesotho

  Regional Office:
5th Floor, Pension House Constitution Road
Maseru West
Lesotho
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  • Overview
  • Owners
  • Geology
  • Mining
  • Processing
  • Production
  • Reserves
  • Costs & Financials
  • Personnel
  • Filings & News

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Overview

StatusCare and Maintenance
Mine TypeOpen Pit
Commodities
  • Diamond
Mining Method
  • Truck & Shovel / Loader
Processing
  • Dense media separation
  • X-Ray sorting
Mine Life10 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.


Owners & OPERATOR

Source:
CompanyInterestOwnership
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.

Deposit Type

  • Kimberlite


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.


Mining Methods

  • Truck & Shovel / Loader


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 capacity of 180m3 or approximately 320 tonnes. The ore will then be fed with an apron feeder into the primary crusher and onto the treatment plant. A RoM stockpile area adjacent to the tipping bin will provide 30,000 tonnes of capacity or approximately three days of production. Building a larger stockpile area proved prohibitive due to the steep terrain in the area. The tipping strategy will be to direct tip into the crusher bin during normal production operations. When the mining fleet is not operational due to a shift change or blasting activities, re-handling from the stockpile will take place using a dedicated front end loader.


Crushing and Grinding
Crusher / Mill TypeModelSizePowerQuantity
Jaw crusher 1
Cone crusher 3

Summary:

Primary Crushing will utilise a jaw crusher with a gap setting of 120mm, and will be located midway between the pit and the plant, with crushed material conveyed 290m to the plant. A crushed ROM stockpile could also be created as an operational buffer in the future and allowance has been made in the design of the front end to accommodate this.

Secondary Crushing will utilize two cone crushers and will operate dry and in closed circuit, choke fed and utilising surge pan feeders so as to optimise crushing efficiency and minimise diamond breakage. Oversize reports back to the feed bins, whilst +4-40mm material is conveyed to the Coarse DMS surge bin and fines (<4mm) are pumped to the scrubber desliming screens.

The tertiary crushing section treats the nominally >10mm material from the Floats Screens top deck oversize of the Coarse DMS Modules, as a closed loop, with the +1.25-10mm material discharged to the fine DMS surge bin and oversize is re-crushed.


Processing

  • Dense media separation
  • X-Ray sorting

Flow Sheet: Subscription required

Summary:

The ROM ore will be processed through a plant with a top cut-off size of 40mm, and bottom cut-off size of 1.25mm, comprising of the following unit processes:

- Ore receiving and primary crushing
- Scrubbing and screening
- Secondary crushing
- Coarse DMS
- Fines DMS
- Tertiary crushing
- Final recovery and sort-house
- De-gritting and slimes thickening/process water reclamation
- Tailings disposal.

Plant has a nameplate capacity of 500 tonnes per hour.

Primary Washing and Screening will be in two parallel scrubbers with sizing screens directing the >40mm oversize to the secondary crusher bin conveyor, the 4-40mm material discharges onto the Coarse DMS feed bin conveyor, and the <4mm material to the Scrubber De-sliming Screens.

DMS Feed Preparation Section collects the <4mm material as well as the +1.25-10mm Tertiary Crusher product and feeds this to the Fines DMS Surge Bins.

Coarse DMS ........

Recoveries & Grades:

CommodityParameter2020201920182017
Diamond Head Grade, cpht 19.822.62218.6

Production:

CommodityUnits2020201920182017
Diamond carats  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required835,832365,891
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Operational Metrics:

Metrics2020201920182017
Total tonnes mined  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required6,713,204 t3,751,387 t
Ore tonnes mined  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required3,802,568 t1,966,493 t
Waste  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required2,910,636 t1,784,894 t
Tonnes processed  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required3.8 Mt2 Mt
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Reserves at June 30, 2020:
Stated at a bottom cut-off of 1.25mm slotted apertures.

CategoryTonnage CommodityGradeContained 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

Operating Costs:

Units2020201920182017
Direct operating costs ($/t milled) USD 9.3610.1
Total operating costs ($/t milled) USD  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Financials:

Units20202019201820172016
Capital expenditures M USD  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required1.95  30.9   68.2  
Revenue M USD  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required62.3  27.9  
Gross profit M USD  ......  Subscription required  ......  Subscription required5.13  
After-tax Income M USD  ......  Subscription required-4.48  -139.22  
EBIT M USD  ......  Subscription required-1.15  -119.52  
Subscription required - Subscription is required


Heavy Mobile Equipment:

Mine Management:

Job TitleNameProfileRef. Date
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Nov 25, 2020
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Nov 25, 2020
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Nov 25, 2020
....................... Subscription required ....................... Subscription required Subscription required Nov 25, 2020
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Staff:

Total WorkforceYear
Subscription required 2019
Subscription required 2017

Corporate Filings & Presentations:

DocumentYear
................................... Subscription required 2020
................................... Subscription required 2019
................................... Subscription required 2019
Annual Report 2018
Corporate Presentation 2018
Annual Report 2017
Corporate Presentation 2017
Technical Report 2015
Subscription required - Subscription is required.

Aerial view:

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