Paragon Diamonds Limited, the AIM quoted diamond production company, said this week it has been granted a prospecting license to scour for diamonds near Orapa, where De Beers has operations.
The license awarded to its IDC’s wholly-owned Botswana subsidiary ‘Kopje’, covers 15┬ákm sq and the mining outfit praised the award by government of Botswana saying it shows it was moving in the right direction.
Paragon Chairman, Luc Huyghebaert, said the move will now prepare the company’s preparation to a diamond explorer.
“The award of a new kimberlite prospecting licence in Botswana is a strategic step forward,” said Huyghebaert in an update.
“In combination with our Lesotho, Zambian and Tanzanian assets, it further strengthens the company’s development into a kimberlite explorer and developer in Southern Africa.”
The licence covers 15┬ákm sq. and is located about 35┬ákm due east of the world-class Orapa Kimberlite mine and north of the Francistown road in the East Orapa Kimberlite Field. The 15 km sq. licence area is also adjacent to the east of Firestone’s BK14 kimberlite project.
 
It said per the company’s consultant geologist, Roy Spencer, the licence area lies within the large regional (40 x 30 km) “KI” anomaly, which was established by De Beers in the 1990?s and of which the “Orapa-type” kimberlites of the BK series are a part.
The eastern part of the “KI” anomaly has been held by DeBeers and Petra Diamonds for a number of years, and holds the potential of a new kimberlite field.
 
┬áParagon is aiming to find its feet into Botswana, which is the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds. If successful, it will join other mining companies that include Gem Diamonds and Lucara, amongst others.
The company has operations in Sierra Leone and pundits say it might strike something big when prospecting begins.
Paragaon has 44.3 percent interest in IDC, a sub Saharan African focused mining group with interests in diamond projects in Lesotho, Zambia and Botswana.
Meanwhile, the company has raised $599,392 (about P3.5 million) from the sale of 2,035 carats of diamonds and 1800g of gold dor├® bar from Konoma in Sierra Leone.
HYPERLINK “http://www.stockmarketwire.com/” StockMarketWire.com revealed the 2,035 carats included 114 carats of ‘special’ stones and generated $522,275 representing an average for the parcel of $257/ct.
The 114 carats of ‘special’ stones generated $191,500 representing an average of $1,680/ct. ??Two of the ‘special’ stones weighing a combined 46 carats generated $154,675 representing an average of $3,362/ct.
The company also sold 1800g of gold dor├® bar at 85 percent purity recovered during the production process for $77,117 at US$1,511/oz representing $1,599 per fine ounce.??Chairman Luc Huyghebaert said: “We are pleased with this sale, which includes some very high value stones.??”We are currently focusing on indentifying higher grade areas in order to increase the yields we can achieve from these assets.”
