DIAMOND PAGE — Trivalence starts production

Junior producer Trivalence Mining (TMI-V) has cut the ribbon on a 14-ft.

commercial pan plant at its 85%-owned Aredor diamond project in Guinea, West Africa.

The plant has a rated processing capacity of 100 tonnes per hour, and a Sortex machine is being used to recover the diamonds. Moreover, the new facility has three times the processing capacity of the previous 8-ft. plant, which recovered more than US$9 million worth of diamonds in the 22 months of its operation.

During the first quarter, the 8-ft. plant processed 62,563 tonnes of alluvial material, from which were recovered 3,273 diamonds weighing 3,103.7 carats.

In addition, the tailings plant processed 48,092 tonnes of tailings and recovered 440 diamonds weighing 405.57 carats, and the new 14-ft. commercial plant processed 764 tonnes, recovering 25 diamonds that weighed 52.12 carats.

Gem-quality diamonds recovered during the recent 3-month periods include: 33 stones between 5 and 10 carats; eight stones of 10-20 carats; and four stones greater than 20 carats. The weights of these largest stones are 26.11, 25.8, 28.8, 25.8 and 43.4 carats.

The 43.4-carat diamond will be sold at the company’s next sale, along with the 28.8-carat stone.

At last report, Aredor contained diamond reserves measuring 1.3 million carats. Trivalence recently increased its interest in the property to 85% from 59.5% by reaching an out-of-court settlement with its former partners at Aredor. The government of Guinea retains a 15% slice of the Aredor pie.

Situated 700 km east of the capital city, Conakry, the property is predominantly underlain by Archean formations (granite gneiss outcrops with relic belts of amphibolites, quartzites and serpentinites). The region is said to have the highest density of known kimberlite bodies in Guinea.

Alluvial diamonds occur in both alluvial terrace deposits and present-day alluvial flat deposits.