Now that floodwaters have receded after a severe wet season in Angola, ASX-listed Lucapa Diamond Company says its immediate focus is on sampling kimberlites closer to the Cacuilo river, as these areas are more likely to be the major sources of the diamonds being found in the river’s alluvial deposits.

The company says the L014 kimberlite, which largely sits beneath the Cacuilo river, remains a high priority, noting that construction of the road to access the L014 area has begun, along with auger drilling to better define the location of the best material for sampling.

Lucapa is undertaking the exploration work with its partners Endiama and Rosas & Petalas.

“Now that the wet season is behind us this year, we are excited to be back in full flow with the exploration programme and gaining access to the areas that were previously inaccessible due to the wet ground conditions.

“The preparation work is well under way for accessing kimberlite L014, from which we will be doing the necessary delineation drilling and taking bulk samples. Road construction and sample planning is progressing for the other priority targets close to the Cacuilo river. We look forward to bringing further updates to the market, as the sampling results become available,” says Lucapa MD and CEO Nick Selby.

Kimberlite 164, which has unearthed 97 diamonds totalling 110.7 ct from three bulk samples, recovered a further 4.6 ct following the reprocessing of 240 m³ of uncrushed oversize and dense medium separation (DMS) tailings material.

The material, which had undergone weathering during the wet season, was checked for additional locked-up diamonds and recovered four, the largest being 1.99 ct. The other diamonds weighed 1.5 ct, 0.7 ct and 0.5 ct.

Meanwhile, severe flooding of the Cacuilo river during the second quarter also limited access to the sample areas, giving the opportunity to reprocess now weathered oversize and DMS tailings material from previous samples KBS/204 and KBS/440.

Two diamonds weighing a total of 2.1 ct were recovered from KBS204/R and one diamond weighing 0.3 ct was recovered from KBS440/R.

The company reiterates that 23 kimberlites have been selected for bulk sampling, in addition to the three remaining from the previous phase.

The 23 kimberlites were prioritised using the information gathered during the latest phase of bulk sampling, where nine kimberlites have been shown to be diamondiferous and combining it with the pre-existing datasets of deposit size, proximity to alluvial diamond finds, indicator mineral abundance, mineral chemistry and kimberlite petrography.

Since the Lulo kimberlite bulk sampling programme started, the company says more than 560 geophysical anomalies across the concession have been discovered. Of those, 164 anomalies have been drilled and more than 141 kimberlites discovered.

The conversion rate of anomalies drilled to kimberlites discovered is about 86%.

So far, 35 kimberlites have been sampled during the programme, with 25 of these processed since the dedicated kimberlite bulk sampling plant (KBSP) was commissioned in September 2022.

The number of samples processed since the commissioning of the KBSP stands at 45.

Drilling to define a sample area at L047 is complete, with sample excavation and drilling under way at L218 and L103. The next kimberlite targets due to be processed are L047, L103, L014 and L218.