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Friday, November 10, 2006

River Diamonds to buy Sierra Leone project

UK-based mining company River Diamonds has agreed to acquire the Panguma Diamond project, in Sierra Leone, from Olympus Development, a subsidiary of African Precious Metals.
The Panguma area is situated about 230 km from Freetown and covers about 54 km2 in eastern Sierra Leone.
River Diamonds has been exploring Panguma since January under the terms of a joint-venture agreement, which was signed with Olympus in June 2005.
To date, River Diamonds has been sampling, mapping and drilling the kimberlite dykes at Panguma and has obtained encouraging results.
The company has defined the lateral extent of the Talama 1 Kim-berlite Dyke and has identified two further kimberlite intrusions, one of which was sampled and 1,5 ct was subsequently recovered from a 2,6-t sample.
In total, the mini bulk sampling has recovered 6,71 ct from 12,5 t.
River Diamonds is now in the final stages of a drilling programme at the Pandobu Intrusion, in Panguma, which will allow a bulk sample to be taken at the locality and enable the company to move the project forward to a formal resource definition.
Under the terms of the acquisition, an exploration licence over a 54-km2 area at Panguma is to be transferred to Panguma Diamonds.
“The adjacent Tongo dyke fields contain some of the richest kimberlite diamond dyke deposits in the world and this, coupled with the encouraging results from our exploration programme, provides a great opportunity for River Dia-monds to own outright a highly prospective diamond deposit,” said River Diamonds chairperson Colin Orr-Ewing.