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DIAMONDS
October 2016
MODERN MINING
23
Left:
A very recent view of
the Liqhobong site with
the treatment plant at an
advanced stage.
Below:
A 'forest' of cranes
working on the treatment
plant in August this year.
kimberlite project in a notoriously remote loca-
tion – he had secured the funding for the new
mine and in early 2014 Firestone was able to
announce a funding package of US$140 million
and a project debt facility of US$82,4 million.
In a previous interview with
Modern Mining
,
Brown said the successful fund raising was in
large part attributable to the high quality of
the DFS, completed by DRA in 2012 and later
revised. “In addition, we had put together a
well thought out plan for project implementa-
tion over a two-year period which was realistic
and attainable and which impressed the mar-
ket,” he said.
In the event, the originally envisaged two-
year construction period has slipped slightly.
As Brown told journalists at the recent media
briefing, much higher than normal rainfall over
the 2014/15 rainy season together with an unan-
ticipated increase in the quantity of overburden
to be removed from the primary crusher and
plant terraces led to the civils programme being
extended by six months, a decision announced
last year.
Firestone has, however, managed to bring the
revised schedule – with an anticipated comple-
tion date of 22 December – forward by several
weeks, with first production imminent as this
article was being written. According to Brown,
the completion of the first sale of diamonds
is expected in early February 2017. “We’ll be
ramping up aggressively to our full production
rate over a six-month period and our current
production guidance for the financial year end-
ing June 2017 is for between 1,8 and 2 Mt of ore
to be treated to produce between 380 000 and
450 000 carats,” he said. He added that there
was already a 50 000 tonne stockpile of historic
mixed ore next to the primary crusher and that