Diamond Fields International (DFI) is in the process of restarting offshore marine operations on its Namibian concessions in a joint venture with International Mining and Dredging South Africa Limited SPV1 (IMD), a subsidiary of International Mining and Dredging Holdings, Limited (IMDH) and an associate company of Nutam Ltd. of Namibia.
Pursuant to an agreement between DFI’s Namibian subsidiary Diamond Fields (Namibia) (DFN) and IMD, DFN and IMD have begun a four-stage development program of DFN’s mining concessions ML-138, ML-139 and ML-111.
The first stage consists of deploying a survey vessel, the DP Star, to complete geophysical surveys in the concession areas. The second stage will use a sampling vessel to complete reconnaissance sampling of targets identified by the geophysical study. The third stage involves a sampling vessel to complete regional/bulk sampling and a preliminary resources assessment and preparation of a mining plan.
The program will ascertain the grade and size of diamond deposits, the available quality and diamond carat sizes, the nature of the overburden, the soils and the hard layer, and the economic and technical considerations for undertaking mining activities in the concession areas.
It will initially focus on identifying potential new resource areas, in particular buried palaeo-channel systems which are known to occur within the concessions, but have not previously been evaluated due to the technicalities of exploiting these.
The joint venture will utilize state-of-the-art sub-sea crawler systems that can excavate up to 17 meters of substrate, making these previously unavailable targets accessible.
The Namibian Government has approved joint operations between DFN and IMD late on June 3, 2015. Further to this, DFN has filed its application for renewal of ML-111, which license expires December 4, 2015.