Friday, December 12, 2003 TAWANA Resources shares rose 35 cents yesterday to close at $2.00 after the company said it had recovered a gem-quality diamond from its Daniel alluvial project in South Africa during commissioning of its dense media separation plant.
The company's shares rocketed after a trading halt was lifted late in the day, however, while happy with the result on the ASX, managing director Wolf Marx said he was even happier with this one diamond.
"This is quite surprising, actually, that we found a diamond so early because this isn't a bulk sample, it came from original drillhole material that we were using while commissioning the plant," he said.
"Obviously we were going to go ahead with the bulk sampling anyway, but it just means now that we can sort of sleep easy."
Marx has already dubbed the 0.36 carat diamond the most important in the company's history.
"This one diamond proves that the Daniel alluvial project is diamondiferous and because it was gem stone quality it proves that there are gem diamonds in the deposit," he said.
"We are trying to find a way right now to artistically preserve it or frame it some way to display in the office."
Marx said the company started its bulk sampling program at Daniel this week, with completion of the first stage of the 500t bulk sampling program expected in February.
Last month the company announced drilling of the ancient river channel system at Daniel showed it extends more than 13km to within 500m of De Beers' Finsch diamond operation.
Geophysical and topographical interpretation suggests the most recently discovered channel - which joins with the main Daniel alluvial channel downstream - goes right up to the tenement boundary of Finsch, a distance of around 300m from the mining operation.
Finsch is a 2 million carats per annum operation that was developed in the 1960s.
The channel near Finsch is around 600m wide and has gravel intersections of 25-30m thickness, whilst the main Daniel channel, into which it connects, is around 1500m wide and features gravel widths of 45-50m.
Tawana shares had eased 5c to $1.95 this morning. http://www.miningnews.net/storyview.asp?storyid=20760§ionsource=c11
TAW Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
