Diamondcorp (LON:DCP) is about on schedule to get its Lace mine in South Africa into production in the next few months.
Tunnel excavation underground has gone slower than expected due to additional safety and support work near old workings, which has pushed the timetable back four weeks.
Diamondcorp is tunnelling to open up the UK4 block and has started to process ore recovered from both its development (K6) and production level (K4) workings.
It has already uncovered one Type IIa white diamond.
Today it said that generally recoveries from the K4 kimberlite are exceeding expectations for overall quality, adding it was confident that UK4’s operating margins will exceed 70% as previously predicted.
An updated resource estimate will be carried out when there is sufficient material recovered, it added.
Development costs averaged R44,193/m against a budget of R37,000/m due to the tunnelling delays but some of this was clawed back by lower costs for the underground mining fleet.
A placing and open offer raised £5.27mln earlier this month, which is sufficient to get commercial production underway said the company.