New Kimberlite Discovery

30 Mar 2006 10:00

Sunrise Diamonds PLC30 March 2006 www.sunrisediamonds.com 30 March 2006 SUNRISE DISCOVERS NEW "LAMPI" KIMBERLITE AT KUUSAMO • Seventh Find Continues Company's "Exceptional" Discovery Rate • Lampi Located More Than 10km From Company's Earlier Finds • Current Programme Continues To Test Other Kuusamo Targets Sunrise Diamonds plc ("Sunrise" or "the Company") is pleased to announce that anew kimberlite has been intersected at the first of several targets scheduledfor drill testing in the current drilling campaign in the Kuusamo kimberlitecluster in Finland. This new discovery is more than 10km away from the nearestof the Company's previous discoveries and has been named the "Lampi" kimberlite("Lampi" is Finnish for "small lake"). The kimberlite will now be sampled fordiamond indicator minerals and micro-diamonds. The Lampi magnetic anomaly was targeted last year but the Company was unable tocomplete definition work due to access restrictions over water in the summer andtwo drill holes in the Company's last drilling campaign failed to explain theanomaly. The target was included in the recently completed winter ground geophysicalprogramme and modelling of the anomaly indicated the source to be complex inshape. Although the first follow up hole in the current campaign also failed toexplain the anomaly, the second (vertical) hole, which collared in kimberlitebeneath 15m of overburden, remained in kimberlite to the bottom of the hole at55m depth. This success is made more noteworthy by the fact that open-file explorationrecords show that De Beers drilled two holes targeting the Lampi magneticanomaly in the 1990's but failed to discover the kimberlite. Commenting today, Sunrise Chairman, Mr Patrick Cheetham, said: "This latestdiscovery is particularly pleasing as our persistence has paid off. We havetested only nine targets in the Kuusamo area to date and have found sevenkimberlites, three of which have so far been shown to contain micro-diamonds.This discovery rate is quite exceptional." The current drilling programme will continue to test other targets in theKuusamo area including new ones in the Anomaly 45-47 kimberlite area. Further Info: Patrick Cheetham, Sunrise Diamonds plc. Tel: +44 (0)1625-505947.Mob: +44 (0)7767-458751 John Greenhalgh/Ron Marshman, City of London PR Ltd. Tel: +44 ( 0)20-7628-5518 The information in this release has been compiled and reviewed by Mr. PatrickCheetham (MIMMM, MAusIMM) who is a qualified person for the purposes of the AIMGuidance Note for Mining Oil & Gas Companies issued on March 16, 2006. MrCheetham is a Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining and also amember of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange