LONDON (Alliance News) - BlueRock Diamonds PLC on Thursday said it has raised GBP350,000 in a discounted share placing to fund work at its KV01 operations in South Africa.
The company placed 29.2 million new shares at 1.2 pence each. Shares were down 19% on Thursday morning at 1.24p apiece in London.
The funds will be used to speed up work at the KV01 pipe on the Kareevlei diamond mine in the Kimberley region in South Africa.
This, BlueRock said, has similar geology to pipe two, but has an inferred grade 40% higher at 6.3 carats per hundred tonnes of ore.
It is ahead of schedule in its plans to mine kimberlite from KV01 in the third quarter of 2018, with 107,000 tonnes of waste already cleared out. BlueRock has also completed changes to the crushing circuit to allow daily volumes to increase, with final changes expected to be finished in June.
Production guidance for 2018 remains unchanged at 275,000 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 3.5 carats to 4.5 carats per hundred tonnes. In 2017, it produced 153,147 tonnes at 2.45 carats.
Chief Executive Alan Waugh said: "We are pleased that the changes to our crushing circuit have achieved the desired result but we continue to seek ways of increasing production levels further.
"We are excited about beginning to mine K1 with the prospect of a significant increase in grade."