We are due for an update.
1st Quarter Report
Klipspringer Project (100% SUF)
The development of the Leopard fissure for underground mining is progressing at an advance rate of 400 metres per month on six working faces in the Ingwe Section. Mining is expected to commence in July, initially to process 10,000 tonnes per month.
The 50 tonne per hour plant was installed in April and during commissioning, until July, will be used by the Marsfontein Joint Venture to process lower grade diabase material from M-1 and kimberlite from the M-3 pipe.
A third, ten tonne per hour, dense medium separation plant located within the main plant area was commissioned in March. This plant is designed to process drill core and small bulk samples from exploration, independent of the production in the two larger plants. Drill core from the Camafuca project in Angola is being processed through the plant in the month of May.
Definition drilling on the Ndau Section of the Leopard fissure was initiated during the period in order to firm up the resource in this section.
Extensive exploration work continues on a number of the farms in the Klipspringer area. Programmes include soil sampling, stream sediment sampling and geological prospecting and geophysical surveys. Grids range from initial wide spaced lines down to 50 metre spacing, depending on the progressive results from the sampling.
The Klipspringer lab is currently processing over 2,300 samples per month.
ANGOLA
Camafuca Project (51% SUF)
A complete test plant was moved on site during the first quarter and has commenced processing the 15,000 tonne kimberlite bulk sample taken in late 1998 to establish grades and diamond values.
Drill core from the phase 1 drilling programme was shipped to the plant at Klipspringer and preliminary results indicate that the grades appear to be significantly higher than the historical database.
All remaining drill core on site at Camafuca will be shipped to South Africa for testing.
As part of the prefeasibility valuation to study the economics of selectively mining higher grade portions of the pipe, over 1000 metres of geotechnical core drilling was completed on the east side of the Chicapa river to provide information for the design of the cutting wheel heads for a dredge extraction process.
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