Vast Resources And Botswana Diamonds Proceed with Joint Venture To Mine Marange Diamond Field
and received an independent Competent Person's preliminary geological assessment of the Heritage Concession within the prolific Marange Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe.
The assessment, coupled with further information obtained from Vast's due diligence, has prompted the parties to proceed with the full Joint Venture Agreement with Red Mercury for exclusive mining rights.
The property, 6,913 hectares in surface area, contains several targets for modern alluvial diamond placer deposits.
The grades of the known proximal modern alluvial placers draining the Marange Diamond Fields elsewhere range in grade from 50-500 carats per hundred tons ('cpht'), most typically 100-200 cpht.
There is also potential for remnants of the basal Umkondo unit on the ceoncession, which runs at grades from 100-3,000 cpht elsewhere in the Marange Diamond Fields.
With input from Botswana Diamonds, Vast Resources has prepared base case commercial scenarios and has decided to proceed to the full Joint Venture Agreement with Red Mercury, subject to legal due diligence.
Follow-up field work will then be done to investigate the potential of modern alluvial diamond placer deposits and the possibility of the basal Umkondo unit on the concession, closely followed by pitting, drilling and bulk sampling which will form part of prefeasibility studies.
Just outside the eastern edge of the property is the closest known diamond mine within the Marange Diamond Fields.
The deposit was discovered and operated from late 2010 with records indicating that an average stone size of c.5 carats per stone and an average diamond value of c. $80/ct was achieved.
The prolific Marange Diamond Fields produced 8.7m carats in 2010, 12m in 2012 and 16.9m in 2013 according to estimates.
Shares in Vast Resources were trading at 0.615p each following the announcement
Andrew Prelea, VAST CEO, commented: "The promising results from site visits, the competent person's geological report and work with BOD gives the Company great confidence in moving forward with the next phase of operations on the ground.”
"The Company has assembled and mobilised a team of geologists and engineers to begin work on the ground and we are looking forward to updating the market with progress of the field work.”
John Teeling, Chairman of BOD, commented: “This assessment, has outlined significant potential on the concession and proposes the next steps which include mapping and trial mining if indicated."
Vast has a due diligence access agreement and pre-agreed joint venture terms with Botswana Diamonds who is engaged on due diligence, exploration, mining and marketing for the Heritage Concession.
Below is the Vox Markets podcast featuring James Campbell talk about the future of the diamond industry
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