Modern Mining July 2015

COUNTRY FOCUS – BOTSWANA

by the new Karowe mine in the Orapa area, and said he had almost got “sick” listening to the Lucara presentation which detailed the new mine’s exceptional production of large stones. This was a reference to the fact that African Diamonds, a predecessor company to Botswana Diamonds, at one stage had an interest in the AK6 project in which it was partnered with De Beers. Teeling headed African Diamonds as Executive Chairman. Teeling said that African Diamonds and De Beers had discovered the AK6 pipe in 2004. To the best of Modern Mining’s knowledge, the kimberlite was in fact found circa 1970 by De Beers, which considered it at the time to be sub-economic. Teeling can, however, can take much of the credit for the fact that AK6 now supports a diamond mine. De Beers favoured delaying mine development but Teeling would have none of it. He was instrumental in Lucara buying De Beer’s share in the project and, as the saying goes, the rest is history, with Karowe now ranking as one of the most successful new diamond mining developments in recent years anywhere in the world (as our article on page 28 of this issue makes clear). 

Botswana’s first underground diamond mine. In respect of the Orapa tenements, Teeling said that Botswana Diamonds had provided its extensive Orapa database to Alrosa, which had analysed the data and produced a series of targets. The Orapa licences include PL 206, where kimberlite indicator materials (KIMs) have been found in nearly all the samples thus far collected, PL 207, where two diamonds were found in the 2014 sampling, and PL 210, where exploration work has identified a clear anom- aly and where drilling will be undertaken later this year. All told, the joint venture has a US$1 million (for 2015) exploration programme underway on the Orapa blocks. According to Teeling, one of the benefits imparted by Alrosa’s technology is a fast turn- around on analysis of soil samples. “They use mobile mineral analysis labs on site and com- pare the results of sampling against known ‘footprints’ – there are no delays and the result is that exploration is speeded up dramatically,” he said. On a lighter note, Teeling mentioned the AK6 kimberlite, the resource being exploited

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