Korowe Diamond mine: 'We hit a stroke of luck'
The three investors in the multibillion Pula Korowe mine in the Boteti district hit a stroke of luck that is needed when venturing into the mining business.
The reasons are very simple as Lucara Botswana Managing Director Naseem Lahri puts it. “In mining you will never know what is in there until you have started operations using the correct technology and optimising costs.”
In an interview with Botswana Guardian, and sharing the success story of an operation that of late holds the record of producing the world’s most envied precious stones, Lahri hardly completes a sentence without referencing the importance of optimising what one has.
'When we took over, I do not think the data was any different to what was received from the previous prospectors. We understand that this particular resource had competent or carats per hundred tonnes. “Further, that we run about 20 carats per hundred tonnes. If you look at any typical operation, you got companies that are running at about 120 carats per hundred tonnes and 20 is definitely at the lower end.'
Lahri believes that at the time when Lukas Lundin, Eira Thomas and Catherine McLeon- Seltzer set up the company, they saw something. She said William Lamp, the current CEO of the company, realised that a great opportunity exists.
The difference between them and other mining companies, according to Lahri, is that they are a small entity.
'Any small operation whether in mining, in retail or distribution is optimisation. So, the likes of Debswana they can produce what we are producing, but they have chosen a business model that is very different from ours”.
She said that for them, optimisation is an imperative. “We have to optimise. We have to bleed that stone until it can’t bleed anymore. Our life of mining initially was 10 years, we did not understand that there will be an opportunity. At the time we did not have the data to show us that we have an underground that will take us to 2040. We ran about 320000 to 400000 carats per annum. Our prospecting license at the time was up to 2023, we obviously renewed to 2040 with the government.'
She added that the technology they use has never been used anywhere in Africa. The technology is also used in Russia.
'We started using it here because the ore that we had at the time had proven to be competent. The AG mill reduces the breakage when we liberate the diamonds because it’s like a washing machine, it breaks the rocks as it rolls. That is one of the things that came through when we implemented it.'
About a year into commissioning, which was in April 2012, by next March, Lucara recovered a 200-carat stone and all of a sudden, a light bulb stated going on that they have some of the largest stones in this operation.
Today, Lahri believes that what is at their mine at Karowe will never be seen to any diamond mine because most are open mines. Theirs on the other hand uses a circuit that continuously goes around through the size fractions that extracts to optimum levels.