Stephen Wetherall

THE diamond industry’s been through some steep ups and downs in the past decade so the last thing anyone in the sector wanted was the Covid-19 disruption of 2020. Lucapa’s mission for 2021 was to put the Covid-19 chaos in the rear-view mirror and return to its origins as a growth company. It’s fair to say the seeds for that ambition have been sown.

The A$8.5m acquisition of the Merlin diamond mine in Australia’s Northern Territory, preceded by a A$20m two-tranche share placement in May, takes Wetherall away from Lucapa’s African base but helps de-risk the company’s asset mix and boost overall production levels – assuming he’s right about the former Rio Tinto and Ashton Diamonds operation. According to Wetherall, Merlin will propel Lucapa to mid-tier diamond-producing status. Let’s hope. Merlin produced 500,000 carats between 1999 and 2003. Based on a scoping study completed in December, first production is set to come on stream by 2024. Covid-19 hasn’t disappeared – as we plainly know - but diamond trading has resumed.

So have operations at Lucapa’s Lulo mine in Angola and the Mothae mine in Lesotho, both of which managed to return record revenues from the sale of rough diamonds. Lucapa also resumed meaningful exploration at Lulo, where additional kimberlites were identified, and at the Brooking/Orapa project in Botswana, where new drill targets were delineated. Wetherall might agree, it’s been a couple of hairy years for Lucapa, but now the company could cement itself with Australian investors as the only game in town given Rio Tinto recently shut its Argyle mine.