Stellar Diamonds has agreed to combine its Tongo kimberlite diamond project with Octea Mining’s adjacent kimberlite diamond project, Tonguma in Sierra Leone, and to bring both assets into production under the same infrastructure, Rough & Polished reports.
The consolidated project will have a total resource of 5 million carats, with an exploration target of 8 million carats. “Once in production the combined diamond mining operations will be the second largest in West Africa with an estimated maximum output at full production of approximately 250,000 carats per year of high value diamonds”, said company CEO Karl Smithson in a statement.
He said that using the available infrastructure at Tongo and Tonguma, diamond mining operations were expected to commence within the first 12 months post completion of the proposed transaction. Octea general manager Christo Swanepoel said the joint project would be under Stellar’s operational management.
