Lucara Diamond Corp provide operating guidance for 2025. William Lamb, Lucara’s President and CEO, commented on the 2024 progress noting that, “To date in 2024, Lucara achieved remarkable milestones at its Karowe Mine in Botswana, successfully meeting and exceeding all production targets. The Company’s strategic focus on the underground mining project showed significant advancement, with shaft depths reaching new records.
Further, our innovative extraction technologies are once again proving the quality of the resource through the recovery of two exceptional diamonds larger than 1,000 carats, including the epic 2,488-carat diamond and the 1,094-carat diamond. We have also demonstrated substantial progress in reducing operational costs and improving sustainable mining practices.”
2025 Outlook say, this section provides management’s production and cost estimates for 2025. These are “forward-looking statements” and subject to the cautionary note regarding the risks associated with forward-looking statements.
Revenue and sales channels for 2025, the Company’s revenue forecast assumes that 79% of the carats recovered will come from the higher value M/PK(S) and EM/PK(S) units within the South Lobe, the sale of its diamond inventory, and the remaining carats recovered come from the Centre Lobe in accordance with the mine plan, generating revenue between $195 and $225 million. South Lobe material, while lower grade than the Centre and North Lobes, has a higher weight percentage of stones greater than 10.8 carats in size.
Mining and processing assumptions in 2025, the Company expects to mine between 1.8 and 2.2 million tonnes of combined ore and water, which will be processed in combination with stockpiled materials in 2025. The assumptions for carats recovered and sold as well as the number of ore tonnes processed are consistent with achieved plant performance in recent years.
Stockpiled material (North, Centre, South Lobe) from working stockpiles and life-of-mine stockpiles should provide uninterrupted mill feed until 2027 when Karowe underground project (“UGP”) development ore is scheduled to start offsetting stockpiles with high-grade ore from the underground development. Full scale underground production is planned for H1, 2028.
Underground and sustaining capital expenditures for the underground development is expected to extend Karowe’s mine life to beyond 2040. In 2024, significant progress was made in shaft sinking and lateral development connecting the production and ventilation shafts, with the critical path ventilation shaft being ahead of the July 2023 rebase schedule.
In 2025, capital costs for the UGP are expected to be up to $115 million and will focus predominantly on shaft sinking activities to final depth, equipping of the production shaft and station development. Surface works will focus on permanent winders being installed and cold commissioned. Tendering the underground lateral development contract along with underground equipment purchases will also be completed in 2025.
Sustaining capital are expected to be up to $13 million with a focus on the replacement and refurbishment of key asset components, in addition to expansion of the tailings storage facility and pit steepening activities which will extend the mine’s ability to extract South lobe material from the pit in 2025.
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