Modern Mining November 2016

DIAMONDS

ramp up

cost at around R7 billion. Petra’s current C-Cut project – Phase 1 – is a scaled-down version of what De Beers was proposing and requires a capital investment of around R4,2 billion. It is also indicative of Petra’s well-proven ability to design and implement projects with an effi- ciency which is relatively rare in the modern global mining industry, where cost and sched- ule overruns on capital projects tend to be the norm rather than the exception. Says Cloete: “Our Phase 1 project encom- passes a 5,7 ha portion of the kimberlite and extends the life of Cullinan to 2030. Phase 2 would add 7,8 ha to the C-Cut footprint and would extend the life of mine well beyond 2030 but at this stage is purely conceptual. De Beers’ plan was to develop the C-Cut in one go, whereas we are targeting only the western side of the orebody in the upper portion of the C-Cut resource in our Phase 1 project.” He adds that the total C-Cut resource con- tains an estimated 131 Mct. To put this in context, this is slightly more than the 128 Mct of diamonds that Cullinan – one of the world’s most famous diamond mines – has thus far

A long hole rig drilling the trough in one of the 839 production level draw points.

Schematic of the Cullinan mine showing the C-Cut project.

November 2016  MODERN MINING  31