Paragon Diamonds Exports Second Parcel to Antwerp for Valuation

Paragon Diamonds Limited exported a parcel of  211.22 carats of rough diamonds, all of which have Kimberley Process certificates, from its  Lemphane kimberlite project in Lesotho to the company's consignee in Antwerp for valuation. Paragon Diamonds added that it is also waiting for valuation from an earlier parcel of 90.22 carats that it sent to Antwerp.
The most recent parcel included an 8.86 carat stone that was recovered in May. All samples have been excavated from sub-surface kimberlite to a depth of approximately 2.5 meters. Approximately 11 carats of diamonds were produced from clean-up and plant sterilization, which will be allocated to samples pro-rata.
Paragon Diamonds has completed its first stage  deep delineation drilling  on the Lemphane kimberlite, with four holes to an average depth of 343 meters.   The first three holes drilled through kimberlite and intersected the kimberlite/wall rock contact at between 2,355 meters and 2,270 meters above sea level and between 260 meters and 345 meters below the surface.
The final hole approached, but did not intersect, the contact, bottoming out at 372.5 meters, while still in kimberlite. Given this, in-house calculations indicated that the kimberlite/wall rock contact angle varies between 85 degrees and 87 degrees and at 350 meters below the mean surface layer the pipe still maintains a planar area greater than ''3 Ha.'' These results exceed the provisional estimates made for the scoping study in February.
In June, the Lesotho Minister of Mines requested additional information on Paragon Diamonds'  environmental base line audit. This audit has recently been completed by the company's environmental consultants, LOCI Environmental, and submitted to the ministry  for approval of the mining lease application.
Martin Doyle, the chairman of Paragon Diamonds, siad, "I remain very pleased with the steady progress that we are making on the ground at our flagship project, Lemphane. There is currently strong demand for the type of stones that are being produced from Lemphane and with current global market supply constraints this positions the company well to continue to the evaluation program. I look forward to updating the market with the revised tonnage and volumetric report, in addition to progress on the mininglicence application, which should be awarded shortly."