Lucapa Diamond Company Limited and its partners Endiama and Rosas & Petalas, updated JORC Classified Inferred Alluvial Diamond Resource for the Lulo diamond concession in Angola.
The diluted gravel (ore) volume in the updated Lulo Alluvial Resource is equivalent to eight years of production at Lulo’s planned mining and processing capacities. Extensive resource definition work since the last update involved auger drilling and trial mining in the southern mining blocks as well as gaining additional production data from the active mining blocks.
Even with the increase in mining capacities over the last seven years by SML, this is the 6th consecutive year in which the resource carats have increased.
The updated Lulo Alluvial Resource was independently estimated and reconciled on a depletion and addition basis to 31 December 2023 by external consultants, Z Star Mineral Resource Consultants (Pty) Ltd (“Z Star”) of Cape Town, South Africa.
The updated Lulo Alluvial Resource was estimated after taking into account,
1: Mining depletion to 31 December 2023 by SML mining operations, during which time 30,585 carats of diamonds were recovered from 625,548 bulk cubic metres of gravel (ore);
2: The delineation of new or additional resources and improved knowledge of existing resource areas through extensive ~11,000-hole auger drilling and ~960 hole pitting programs.
3: Sales of diamonds during 2023 totaling US$77.3m at an average diamond price of US$2,700/ carat.
After accounting for mining depletion of 30,585 carats during 2023 calendar year, the alluvial exploration activities undertaken during the year increased the Lulo Alluvial Resource in-situ carats by 48% to 228,400 carats.
Diamond valuations have been affected by a softening in diamond prices during 2023. The modelled diamond value has been escalated using a global rough diamond price index provided by GTD Consultants, an independent diamond valuation consultancy, up to 31st December 2023. The modelled diamond values have decreased by ~5% from US$2,000/ carat to US$1,897/ carat on average.
To date, ~200,000 carats of diamonds have been recovered on the Lulo concession and sold by SML for ~US$426 million, at an average price of ~US$2,122/ carat. The total diluted volume of gravel (ore) available for mining in the updated Lulo Alluvial Resource increased by 90% to 5.02Mm3. The resource grade in the updated estimate has dropped to 4.55 cphm3 from 5.82 cphm3 in 2022.
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