Botswana Diamonds and Alrosa to Start New Drilling

(IDEX Online) – Botswana Diamonds and its 50/50 joint venture partner Alrosa will begin the next stage of exploration at the end of September in the Orapa and Gope areas of Botswana.

Four core holes will be drilled in Gope on PL 135, two core holes will be drilled on kimberlite AK22 on PL 260 in Orapa, two core holes will be drilled on PL 085 in Orapa, an intensive program of geophysics and soil sampling will be carried out on the four other licenses held in Gope. An Alrosa team of seven specialists will be joined by Botswana Diamonds geologists and support crew.

Botswana Diamonds Chairman John Teeling said earlier work "pinpointed sites we believe may contain new diamondiferous kimberlites".

Final results are still awaited from the analysis of the 80 tons of material recovered from the two Large Diameter Drillholes (LDD) on kimberlite AK21 on license PL 260 in Orapa. Delays in finding a company in South Africa capable of concluding the work were compounded by an inconclusive result. Concentrate is being returned to Botswana for evaluation by Alrosa specialists. Core which came from earlier boreholes on AK 21 is being sent to a laboratory for caustic fusion analysis.