NADL: Merlin Resources Increase by 2 Million Carats

Australian diamond exploration and development company North Australian Diamonds Limited (NADL) has announced that results from a recent diamond-core drilling program at its Merlin diamond operation in Northern Australia indicate that Merlin's combined indicated and inferred diamond resources have increased from an earlier reported 4.093 million carats to 6.2 million carats.

The drilling, which focused on exploring and defining deeper portions of the PalSac pipe in Merlin's southern cluster, has indicated that the pipe's combined Indicated and Inferred resources, which are compliant with Australia's Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC), have increased by 39 percent to 13.46 million tonnes, compared to previous results of 9.6 million tonnes.

"The drilling to date has increased confidence in the geometry of the PalSac pipe resulting in a significant portion of the previous JORC-compliant ‘Inferred Resource' being upgraded to ‘Indicated Resource' status," says NADL. "The total JORC ‘Indicated Resource' for PalSac is now 8 million tonnes representing an increase of 56% pre the current drilling program."

At surface, the PalSac pipe is expressed as two discrete pipes, namely Palomides and Sacramore, which coalesce at approximately 110 meters below surface to form a larger single body, according to NADL. "The PalSac resource is important for the future development of a sustainable long-term mining operation because of the high proportion of project tonnes," says a NADL press release.

"Based on the historic diamond recoveries from Palomides and Sacramore pits during previous mining operations, pit samples and the analysis of deep-core samples, PalSac contains a diamond resource of 4 million carats using a modelled diamond grade of 0.72 carats per cubic meter," says an NADL press release.