Crushing Circuit Upgrade Completed

RNS Number : 6544H

BlueRock Diamonds PLC

02 August 2019

 

BlueRock Diamonds PLC / AIM: BRD / Sector: Natural Resources

2 August 2019 

BlueRock Diamonds PLC ('BlueRock' or the 'Company')

Crushing Circuit Upgrade Completed

BlueRock Diamonds plc, the AIM listed diamond mining company, which owns and operates the Kareevlei Diamond Mine in the Kimberley region of South Africa ("Kareevlei"), is pleased to announce that the upgrade to the crushing circuit, including the installation of a larger cone crusher ("New Crusher"), is now complete.

In addition to the installation of the New Crusher, the crushing circuit has been upgraded and reconfigured in order to handle the expected increase in material flows and is now set up to be able to operate the New Crusher alongside the existing cone crusher.   The New Crusher began operating yesterday and is expected to be running at full capacity shortly.  The existing cone crusher will continue to run as volume through the New Crusher increases in order to maintain production and to build stockpiles of crushed ore in line with our operating plan.

Mike Houston, Executive Chairman commented, "We are pleased that the upgrade of the crushing circuit has been completed. We have taken the opportunity to make a number of improvements to the processing plant during the crusher shut down period and are confident that these improvements will have the desired effect in achieving our targeted level of production in the second half of the year.  Our volume guidance for the year remains at 280,000 tonnes to 335,000 tonnes and, as previously announced, we will refine our guidance following the end of Q3 after the reconfigured plant has been operational for two months."

Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure - Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 until the release of this announcement.

**ENDS**

For further information, please visit BRD's website www.bluerockdiamonds.co.uk or contact:

BlueRock Diamonds PLC Mike Houston, Executive Chairman David Facey, FD	Tel: [phone]
SP Angel (NOMAD and Broker) Stuart Gledhill / Caroline Rowe	Tel: [phone]
SVS Securities plc (Joint Broker) Elliot Hance	Tel: [phone]
Turner Pope Investments (Joint Broker) Lewis Jones/Andy Thacker	Tel: [phone]
St Brides Partners Ltd (Financial PR) Melissa Hancock / Juliet Earl	Tel: [phone]

Notes to editors:

BlueRock Diamonds is an AIM-listed diamond producer which operates the Kareevlei Diamond Mine near Kimberley in South Africa which produces diamonds of exceptional quality and ranks in the top ten in the world in terms of average value per carat. The Kareevlei licence area covers 3,000 hectares and hosts five known diamondiferous kimberlite pipes. As at November 2018, it was estimated that the remaining Inferred Mineral Resource from the four kimberlite pipes (KV1, KV2, KV3 and KV5) represents a potential inground number of carats of 367,000.

 

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