TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – British Columbia-based junior Diamcor Mining has recovered its first "special" diamond in the larger than 10.8 ct category from its Krone-Endora at Venetia project, in South Africa’s Limpopo province.

The “very good quality” 11.23 ct diamond was recovered during the recent processing of material between 1 mm and 12 mm in size through the newly installed expanded quarrying and in-field screening operations at the project.

Diamcor added that it had recovered about 2 464 ct of diamonds from the limited processing completed, with the largest “nonspecial” diamond being 8.66 ct in size.

"The recovery of a diamond of this size and quality further confirms the potential of the project to produce large, quality diamonds. To have it occur so quickly, based on the limited processing of material mainly up to 12 mm in size, is also very promising,” Diamcor president and CEO Dean Taylor said.

Meanwhile, the Limpopo region had experienced the most rainfall in 200 years in the first quarter, which had resulted in flood damage to roads, fences and properties in the area, including Krone-Endora. Diamcor said this resulted in challenging conditions for mining operations, which led to delays and, in some cases, normal mining operations being suspended.

At the mine site, stockpiles of material in the larger than 12 mm size fractions, targeted for processing in the first quarter, could not be effectively processed through the in-quarry dry-screening plant, and the processing of other size material was also limited owing to the rain.

"While the significant rain delayed our efforts to advance the project as quickly as desired and limited our ability to process material at levels targeted in the short term, operations are now returning to normal. We're now focusing on ramping up operations and are excited about the prospect of processing larger-size material,” Taylor said.

Diamcor, in March, completed the $4-million procurement, delivery, construction and installation of equipment and infrastructure required to significantly expand the quarrying and in-field dry-screening operations at the project.

The expanded quarrying and in-field screening operations, which were funded through an offtake agreement with strategic partner Tiffany & Co Canada, were designed to provide significant operational cost savings and efficiencies, through removing about 60% to 65% of fine material in the smaller than 1 mm size category at the quarry through a dry-screening process.

The production capacities of the expanded facilities were designed to exceed those of the main processing plant to allow treated and screened materials to be stockpiled at the main processing plant.

Diamcor said that, with the fine material removed, rain would not affect screened material stockpiled at the plant in the future.

However, the delays caused by the unusually heavy rain were a result of unfortunate timing, as the material recovered from the quarry could not be processed through the expanded in-field dry-screening operations before they were saturated by the rain, resulting in no stockpile of previously screened material being available at the main plant for processing, as would normally have been the case.