Lucara finds 53.5-carat diamond during first week of production at Mothae

Diamond production company Lucara Diamond Corp. has recovered a 53.5 carat, white Type IIA diamond during its firmachine for grinding of pet cokest week of production at the company's Mothae mine in the Kingdom of Lesotho. Kimberlite processing, which totals just 2,000 tonnes, commenced earlier this week and production is currently being ramped-up to the design capacity of 1,000 tonnes per day.

"Recovery of this 53.5 carat stone on initial start up at the Mothae mine is a huge win for Lucara and Mothae Diamonds. Results of initial sampling work at Mothae indicated that large diamonds are present but were being broken by the limited material size which the original bulk sample plant could process. As a single stone, this diamond is more than twice the size of any previous diamond recovered from Mothae," says William Lamb, President and CEO. In a separate release, Lucara says that its mining operations began in lay May establishing kimberlite stockpile feed for the diamond recovery plant, which...