6th Feb 2017 11:21
LONDON (Alliance News) - BlueRock Diamonds PLC on Monday said heavy rainfall has delayed the restart of operations at Kareevlei in the the Northern Cape of South Africa, but said it has given a much needed boost to water reserves.
BlueRock shares were down 11% to 4.25 pence per share on Monday.
The Kareevlei mine was undergoing trial operations when BlueRock identified issues with the efficiency of the plant in the first quarter of 2016, prompting the miner to suspend operations in June so it could "more easily assess the shortcomings" of the plant configuration.
Unsatisfactory grades, poor recovery rates and a number of other issues were found to be present within the plant and the Department of Mineral Resources intervened in July by highlighting a number of issues and areas of work that needed to be addressed before operations could restart.
The timing of the suspension was unfortunate as the company had just managed to get processing levels in excess of 20,000 tonnes of ore per month, the capacity of the plant, after struggling to get the plant to run at optimal rates beforehand.
On Monday, the miner reiterated that recent rainfall has "significantly improved the water reserves which is welcome for the short and medium term requirements for the plant," after flagging drought conditions up until the last months of the year.
"The significant recent rainfall has caused some delays to the recommencement of operations but, nevertheless, drilling has now commenced in the pit in preparation for blasting soon after, following which we expect to have a continuous supply of run of mine material for processing," said BlueRock on Monday.
"In advance of the blast we will continue to test the plant by processing stockpiled kimberlite which although limited in quantity and not necessarily a good indication of future grades, will enable us to make final adjustments to the set-up of the plant and new crushing circuit prior to starting operations in earnest," the miner added.
Chief Executive Adam Waugh said the "minor delay is frustrating", but said the team is using the time to "fine tune our new configuration".
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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