Lucara Diamond Corp gets ready to auction rocks from its new Botswana mine

Canadian diamond producer Lucara Diamond Corp announced today that production from its recently inaugurated Karowe mine in Botswana could be available for sale in June.

Buyers may view approximately 40,000 carats of ‎Karowe rough diamonds ahead of time in Gaborone during the first week of June, with an online ‎auction scheduled to take place on June 11. ‎

Commissioning activities at the mine, officially launched last week, were completed during April and more than 10,000 carats of diamonds were recovered from 28,000t of ore processed during the month.

At the end of the second quarter the operations should be operating, as scheduled, at the full design capacity of 350 tons per hour, the company claimed.

Lucara president and CEO William Lamb said excellent progress continues to be made at Karowe.

“Our focus will remain on the ramp-up activities which will culminate in sustainable operations at design capacity by the end of the quarter and the first cashflow from Karowe,” Lamb said.