Lucapa Diamond Company Limited and its partner, the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho (GoL), have announced the results of the third diamond sale in 2021 from the Mothae kimberlite mine in Lesotho, Southern Africa.
The 3,617 carat parcel of rough diamonds was sold for US$420/carat or US$1.5 million (A$2 million or A$543/carat).
As per the Diamond Sales and Purchase Agreement with Safdico International [1], Mothae will receive a minimum average cash flow value of US$630/carat for the first 12 months of the agreement.
The difference between minimum average cash flow value and the selling price will be recouped by Safdico from sales delivered in the future with an average price higher than US$630/carat.
As per the Mothae JORC Resource Statement Lucapa announced to the ASX on 15 October 2020, the South lobe of the Mothae kimberlite has an expected modelled value range of US$377 to US$748 for its three zones (average of US$635/carat). The total average diamond price achieved in the three sales to date in 2021 is US$936/carat.
Mothae is located in Lesotho’s diamond-rich Maluti Mountains within 5 kilometres of Letseng, the world’s highest US$ per carat kimberlite diamond mine.
The Mothae mine commenced production in January 2019 and has produced five +100 carat diamonds to date in its short life.
Lucapa has funded an approximately 45 per cent expansion in the processing capacity of the Mothae mine, which when ramped up in early Q2 2021, will see capacity grow from 1.1 Mtpa to 1.6 Mtpa.
[1] Refer to Lucapa’s ASX release dated 6 November 2020.