Botswana Diamonds (BOD ) has commenced drilling on its Thorny River project in South Africa where a total of eight reverse circulation drill holes will be drilled within two weeks.
The diamond explorer told investors that a total of eight reverse circulation drill holes are planned to drill in-between the recently discovered River and River Extension blows. The drilling programme at the Thorny River project is expected to take no more than two weeks.
Botswana said the objective of the wider exploration programme in the Thorny River area is to discover additional blows and the objective of this specific drilling programme is to determine the extent of the connection between the two recently discovered blows.
The River Blow was discovered by the company back in November 2020 and covered a modelled surface area of 80x40m while the River Extension blow, which is less than 100 metres east of the River Blow, was discovered by the company back in April 2021.
Shares in Botswana Diamonds have increased by over 30% in value since the beginning of 2021. The stock was trading 4.65% higher during late morning trading following the news.
The discoveries atThorny River are within the Zebediela kimberlite field. The Group said select drill samples from both drilling campaigns were treated at an independent laboratory where abundant kimberlitic indicators were recovered along with eleven diamonds.
Botswana said this field chiefly consists of a series of consistently diamondiferous kimberlite dykes with a strike length of 20-km. On this dyke, there are a number of blows being Kudu, Sugarbird, Sugarbird Pass (all part of the Klipspringer diamond mine) and Marsfontein.
The Company explained that four blows have already been mined-out, with the latter being mined by a De Beers / SouthernEra joint venture with a payback of three and a half days.
Chairman, John Teeling, commented, "This is an important step in our drive to establish a commercial diamond ore body at Thorny River. We are very hopeful that these eight holes will confirm that the two blows, River and River extension are in fact one orebody".
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