February 26, 2008

Brazilian Diamonds preliminary results


by Jo Black

Brazilian Diamonds Ltd provides the following update on the ongoing macro-diamond testing of its 100% owned Salvador 1 kimberlite in central Bahia State, Brazil. The Company is pleased to confirm the recovery of diamonds from the partial processing of initially excavated kimberlite material and the separately processed diamond bearing sands and gravels that overlay the Salvador 1 kimberlite.

The Salvador 1 kimberlite is a six hectare body partly exposed beneath the sands and gravels of an old alluvial diamond mine in central Bahia State, Brazil. The ongoing testing of the Salvador 1 kimberlite has completed excavation from the first two of the scheduled six pits. Each pit is designed to extract approximately 1,300 tonnes of kimberlite from different parts of the kimberlite pipe.

Extraction from Pit 1 began in November 2007, and excavation is currently proceeding on the third pit. The kimberlite is multiphase, with as many as six kimberlite rock types identified in the first pit alone. A single one of these phases dominates most of the excavated sample from Pit 1. Partial results are reported herein, with complete and fully verified results to be reported upon completion of all stages of processing.

Processing of the first kimberlite sample began in December 2007 and has been accelerated in the first part of 2008 as on-site plant procedures for the treatment of recovered kimberlite have been improved. This processing plant consists of a primary disaggregation rotary pan, followed by x-ray flowsort and grease table for the recovery of diamonds. It has been augmented with a roll crusher to better handle harder kimberlite fragments, however sample treatment remains slower than excavation.

While none of the samples extracted to date have been fully processed, the Company is pleased to report the recovery of 66 diamonds weighing 7.78 carats, with the largest stone weighing 2.65 carats from the Pit 1 kimberlite material processed to date. These diamonds come from four separate samples taken from within Pit 1 and represent a total of 1,460 tonnes of extracted kimberlite (”in-situ”) (calculated using an experimentally determined average kimberlite density of 2.23 g/cm3).

Approximately 52 per cent. of the total kimberlite extracted to date has begun to be processed and significant parts of that remain incompletely processed (for example, needing further recrushing of harder kimberlite materials to liberate fine diamonds).

Story link: Brazilian Diamonds preliminary results



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