June 17, 2008

Kopane provides production update


by Tiffany Marlow

Kopane Diamond Developments plc, through its subsidiary Liqhobong Mining Development Company (Pty) Ltd. (LMDC) has been treating the different facies from its Liqhobong Main Pipe in discrete campaigns through the Satellite Pipe process plant in order to determine specific processing characteristics ahead of the rigorously controlled processing of bulk samples scheduled to start in late June 2008.

The most recent completed campaign, processing ore from the K5 facies of the Main Pipe, commenced in late April 2008, continued through to the end of May. A total of 38,433 dry tonnes (not surveyed) was processed from the K5 facies, resulting in a total diamond production of 19,887 carats at a calculated grade of 51.7 carats per hundred tonnes (”cpht”).

This grade is materially greater than the average K5 grade used in the Pre-feasibility Study (”PFS”) of 30 cpht and, were this to be replicated throughout the K5 facies of the Main Pipe, it would represent a considerable upside to the project’s economics.

This production resulted in a recent export of 17,165 carats. The pre-shipment valuation by BHP Billiton, from which industrial grade boart stones had been removed, was $1,478,000 representing a value of $86.12/ct If the boart stones had been included it is estimated that the value per carat would have been $74/ct.

This compares with $70/ct used in the PFS produced in mid 2007. The effect of this higher recovered grade and value for this campaign represents an aggregate improvement of 82 per cent over the PFS parameters.

Tim Read, Executive Chairman , said, for the past year Kopane has been completely focused on the Main Pipe project at Liqhobong and the production results announced today surpass predictions made in the original PFS.

These recent operating results help to confirm the quality of the Liqhobong resource and provides considerable support to the Board’s unanimous view of the undervalued nature of Kopane’s assets.

Story link: Kopane provides production update



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