Botswana Diamonds looks at potential for open cast mining
Botswana Diamonds has successfully completed its nine hole drilling programme on the Thorny River property in South Africa.
The objective was to see if two kimberlite blows (the River and River Extension blows were one contiguous orebody, thus increasing the overall resource and improving the commercial prospects of the project.
Nine percussion holes totalling 483 metres, were drilled. One hole intersected 19.1 metres of kimberlite zone, which is encouragingly the biggest thickness found in all three drilling programmes to date.
Another hole intersected a thickness of 13.5m of kimberlite zone. These two intersections came from extending the River Blow toward the Extension Blow. The average kimberlite zone intersection was between 1.5 and 5 metres.
Work has now begun to create a model of the combined blows to estimate the potential resource with plans for a possible open cast mining.
Two new additional targets have been identified close to the current area. These could also be blows, thus increasing resources. They will be drilled.
John Teeling, Chairman, commented:
“This is an excellent set of results. The two blows are, as we hoped, connected – thus increasing the resource. The two thickest intersections close to the River Blow are particularly exciting. Given these results, we are now examining commercial mine alternatives”.
