Shares of Botswana Diamonds (LON: BOD) are gaining on Tuesday morning after the company completed the nine-hole drilling programme on the Thorny River property in South Africa.
The program aimed to see if two kimberlite blows (the river and river extension blows) was one adjoining orebody, therefore increasing the overall resource and improving the project's commercial prospects.
Nine holes were drilled. One hole intersected 19.1 metres of kimberlite zone, which the company said is “encouragingly the biggest thickness found in all three drilling programmes to date.”
Another hole intersected 13.5m of kimberlite zone. The two intersections came from extending the river blow toward the extension blow.
The average kimberlite zone intersection was between 1.5 and 5m.
The company is now working on creating a a model of the combined blows to estimate the potential resource with plans for a possible open cast mining.
John Teeling, Chairman of Botswana Diamonds, said: “This is an excellent set of results. The two blows are, as we hoped, connected – thus increasing the resource. The two thickest intersections close to the River Blow are particularly exciting. Given these results, we are now examining commercial mine alternatives.”
The company's shares are currently up over 10% from Monday's close at 1.18p. In May, Botswana Diamonds shares closed over 15% higher after the discovery of the second kimberlite blow at Thorny River.
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