- A 126 carat diamond has been recovered from the Mothae kimberlite mine in Lesotho.
- It is the sixth +50 carat diamond recovered from the mine since pre-production in 2008, and the largest diamond ever recovered from the mine.
- It was revealed less than two weeks after diamond was revealed from its Lulo mine in Angola.
Lucapa Diamond Company Ltd has recovered a gem-quality 126 carat diamond from the Mothae kimberlite mine in Lesotho.
This is the largest diamond recovered from the mine since operations began in January 2019, and the largest gem-quality diamond ever recovered from Mothae. Lucapa has now recovered six +50 carat diamonds from Mothae since its pre-production bulk sampling program in 2018.
This discovery comes shortly after Lucapa revealed a 130-carat gem-quality diamond from its Lulo alluvial mine in Angola earlier in May this year. Mothae is located less than five kilometres from the world’s highest US$-per-carat kimberlite diamond mine, Letseng.
Lesotho Minister for Mining Keketso Sello said this discovery represented another milestone for Lesotho’s diamond sector.
“Lesotho is very proud of its international reputation as a producer of large and high-quality diamonds and this latest recovery from our newest mine, Mothae, continues to demonstrate our nation’s great potential,” he said.
Lucapa Managing Director Stephen Wetherall shared similar sentiments, saying the big diamond was further proof of the high-value nature of Mothae.
“We are delighted to have recovered our first +100 carat stone so early in our commercial mining campaign at Mothae, along with other rare Type IIa and fancy coloured gems, and look forward to unlocking the true value of this mine over the next decade and beyond,” he said.
Mothae has a production capacity of 1.1 million tonnes of ore a year and is the company’s second high-value mine after the Lulo project.
Along with operating the high-quality Lulo and Mothae mines, Lupaca has early-stage diamond exploration projects in Western Australia, Botswana and Angola. Preliminary programs in Botswana have already identified kimberlite drilling targets
The Brooking exploration project in Western Australia is within 50 kilometres of the Ellendale mine which, when in production, produced more than 50 per cent of the world’s annual supply of fancy yellow diamonds.