BlueRock Diamonds floats on AIM with plans to resurrect De Beers mine

South African mining junior BlueRock Diamonds has begun its first day of dealing on AIM and put in place plans to bring an old De Beers mine back to life.The company raised a gross £1.31m from the issue of new shares in order to buy the mining rights to the Kareevlei Tenements, not far from noted mining town Kimberley in the Northern Cape Province.The Kareevlei Tenements include the Kareevlei Kimberlites, five diamondiferous kimberlite pipes ranging in size from less than 0.5 hectares to 5.6 hectares.De Beers discovered the Kareevlei Kimberlites in 1991 and subsequent owners, including AfriOre and Tawana Resources, have conducted investegative drilling of the site to provide sufficient data to estimate grade and have been used by BlueRock to arrive at an Inferred Mineral Resource of 359,000 carats.Purchasing the rights to mine the kimberlites and mining equipment will cost over a quarter of the company's new funds, with remaining cash to fund plant upgrades and refurbishment and mine set-up costs, with the development focusing initially on pipe 'K1', the highest grade pipe.The board of directors, which is headed by chairman Paul Beck, said they plan to employ contractors in the three-month process to remove the calcrete overburden in order to expose the kimberlite beneath for processing, with open cast mining activities expected to commence in the fourth month following AIM admission. The board said they planned to assess diamond recovery on a continuous basis against the estimated grades and revenues.Once K1 is operational and "if sufficient cash resources are generated", BlueRock said it could begin exploration work on pipes K2, K3 and K5.Shares in BlueRock Diamonds opened at 10p and remained there by 09:15 on Wednesday, their first day of trading. OH