Lucapa Diamond Company Ltd. sold a fourth parcel of diamonds from its Lulo diamond concession in Angola, achieving $2.3 million or $1,500 per carat. The parcel included a 63.05-carat, D, type IIa stone. Lucapa’s proceeds from the four parcels, totaling 3,856 carats, reached $7.7 million, or nearly $2,000 per carat.
The Lulo diamond field has produced fancy colored diamonds (pinks and yellows) and a significant proportion of type IIa stones, according to the company. Lucapa’s CEO, Stephen Wetherall, said, “The sale prices we are achieving highlight the financial significance of recovering large special diamonds on a regular basis — as we are doing at Lulo — and gives us further confidence that we are on track to achieve our previously stated objective of becoming cash-flow positive by the end of this quarter.”
Next, Lucapa is moving its alluvial mining operations to the high-grade diamond zones of BLK 08, 06 and 19, where several large stones have been recovered during bulk sampling. “We hope to be in a position to offer our next parcel of Lulo diamonds for sale in June 2015, in line with our strategy of generating sustainable long-term cash flows from regular diamond sales,” he said.Fourth-Parcel-of-Lulo-Diamonds-Sells-for-A2.9-Million
Lucapa Diamond Company Ltd (“Lucapa” or the “Company”) is based in Perth, Western Australia, and is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX: LOM and LOMO).
Lucapa is the operator of the 3,000km2 Lulo Diamond Concession in Angola’s diamond-rich Lunda Norte province (“”Lulo”).
Lucapa has been undertaking diamond exploration at Lulo continuously since 2008. During that time, the Company has discovered two major kimberlite provinces and extensive diamond-bearing alluvial gravels.
To date, the Company has sold 867.5 carats of diamonds recovered from the bulk sampling phase at Lulo for gross proceeds of ~$A6 million, representing an exceptional average price of more than $A6,960 per carat.
These exceptional average sale prices are due to the large population of special diamonds (up to 131.4 carats), fancy colours and a significant content of type IIa gems, the world’s rarest and most valuable category of diamonds.
In November 2014, Lucapa signed a landmark 35 year mining licence agreement to mine the world class Lulo alluvial diamonds. This is at a time when the supply/demand fundamentals and outlook for the diamond industry are extremely favourable.
The Company has a well-established camp at Lulo, two diamond processing plants and recently expanded its fleet of earth moving equipment.
The Company is also testing priority kimberlite pipes at Lulo to locate the primary source, or sources, of the rare and valuable alluvial diamonds being recovered from within the concession. To date, four kimberlite pipes at Lulo have been confirmed as diamond-bearing.
Lucapa is headed by a first-class board and management team with extensive global diamond industry experience with companies including De Beers, Rio Tinto, Gem Diamonds and Kimberley Diamond Co.
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