DFI eyes $8.1m as production resumes

Having recently resumed mining on the Marshall Fork marine diamond deposit in Luderitz Bay, Namibia, Diamond Fields International (DFI-T) is arranging a non-brokered private placement worth $8.1 million.

The financing deal will see DFI issue 6.6 million units and 6.9 million subscription receipts, both of which are priced at 60 apiece. The receipts are convertible into units on a 1-for-1 basis; each unit consists of one DFI share plus a non-transferable share purchase warrant. One warrant is good for one share at $1 per share for three years. DFI can mandatorily redeem the warrants within 30 days if its share price exceeds $1.30 for 20 consecutive days any time between six and 35 months after closing.

Diamond Fields will ask shareholders to approve the issuance of the subscription receipts at its annual general meeting.

Proceeds will fund development of DFI’s Namibian marine diamond concession, plus exploration in Greenland, Sierra Leone and Madagascar.

Also under the deal, DFI will pay a finders’ fee equivalent to 6% of the funds raised, accompanied by compensation warrants equivalent to 6% of the subscription receipts sold by the finders. The warrants are exercisable into shares at 60 per share.

At the end of September, DFI announced that the contract mining vessel M.V. Anya resumed production on the Marshall Fork deposit. The vessel recovered about 9,500 carats of diamonds from Marshall Fork (the entire year’s expected haul) before returning to Cape Town in March for repairs. Work on the processing plant and mining systems took longer than expected, and plans to deploy a second vessel, Lady S, were scrapped in light of M.V. Anya’s superlative performance.

DFI’s main Namibian concession covers more than 70 km of coastal waters between Hottentot Point to the north and Diaz Point to the south, centred at Luderitz. Within that area are the diamondiferous Marshall Fork, Diaz Reef and Conical Beach features.

Meanwhile in Sierra Leone, DFI intends to carry out more work on the east-central Foindu licence, where a single diamond exceeding 1 mm in diameter was found near two G10 garnets. Efforts will also focus on several areas containing kimberlitic ilmenite on exploration licence 40/96.

In Madagascar, DFI plans to acquire up to an 83% stake in International Gemstones, which holds the Midonge land concessions on the eastern shore of the country and the Horombe Plateau blocks, centred on prospective Archean-aged basement rocks in the central highlands. So far, crews have collected 24 stream-sediment samples on the eastern block, and sampling is under way on Horombe.

Alluvial miners working near DFI’s land unearthed two diamonds weighing 23.8 and 8.4 carats. International Gemstones recently acquired the “high-quality and high-purity” stones, and staked some 45,000 sq. km near where they were found.

Chip sampling on a newly acquired nickel discovery on Ammassilik Island, off the southeast coast of Greenland, averaged 1% nickel, 0.3% copper and minor precious metal values. Field work continues.