Botswana Diamonds gets six new licences as country locks down

Botswana Diamonds announced on Wednesday that the Botswana government has awarded six new prospecting licences, being PL 017-18 of 2020 and PL 066-069 of 2020, to its wholly-owned subsidiary Sunland Minerals.

The AIM-traded firm said the licence tenure was for a period of three years, until 31 March 2023.

It said the licences covered an area of 4,319 square kilometres in the Central and Kgalagadi Districts, colloquially known as the Kalahari.

Additionally, the government had renewed four existing prospecting licenses, being PL001-004 of 2017, to Sunland, covering a total of 1,406 square kilometres in the Kgalagadi District for a further period of two years, until 31 March 2022.

It said airborne and ground magnetic surveys from previous work conducted by Sunland Minerals on those licences had revealed well-defined targets, and subsequent soil sampling over the targets identified heavy concentrations of kimberlitic indicator minerals over those targets, particularly chrome diopsides.

That, the board said, strongly suggested an underlying kimberlite source.

An environmental study was in progress as a pathway to drilling of those high priority targets.

“The president of the Republic of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi has declared a state of emergency following confirmation of three coronavirus cases in the country,” the board also said in its statement.

“He has also announced a lockdown beginning 2 April for 28 days.

“Work will commence on our licenses following lifting of the state of emergency and lockdown.”

At 1352 BST, shares in Botswana Diamonds were up 31.09% at 0.59p.