JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – An 18.2 ct D-flawless diamond was recently discovered in the Cape Mount County in north-west Liberia as part of Youssef Diamond Mining Company’s (YDMC’s) diamond exploration programme.
This follows an earlier discovery of a kimberlite pipe in the same region.
The diamond is a Type II, the first to be reported from Liberia, and the first from a 10-m-wide kimberlite dyke.
“These diamonds are typically large, of exceptional quality and colour and attract top-dollar prices,” says CEO Roger Youssef.
A further boost to this diamond exploration programme has been the identification of several additional en echelon dykes, which, on the basis of preliminary small-scale sampling, are microdiamond-bearing.
“It is encouraging because the probability of finding much larger stones, typical of Type II diamond localities, such as those at Lucara, in Botswana, and Letšeng in Lesotho, is extremely high,” he says.
YDMC reports that its diamond exploration programme will continue in earnest in the first quarter of 2017.
The bulk sampling programme has started and will be supplemented with heavy equipment as the monsoonal rains come to an end.
The programme will focus on the 500 m x 50 m kimberlite pipe located previously, the array of kimberlite dykes and the terrace gravels along the margins of the discovery valley.
Edited by: Chanel de Bruyn
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor Online
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