Diamond Fields under water in Namibia

Diamond Fields (DFI-T) and Australian-based Bonaparte Diamond Mines (BON-A) are finding more diamonds of the coast of Namibia.

The two companies are joint ventured on offshore claims which have yielded a 68% increase in the number of samples with positive diamond recovery compared with last year.

The number of positive samples in which more than one diamond was recovered increased by 85% over the 2006 operations.

A total of 451 diamonds weighing approximately 160 carats were recovered from the 290 positive samples during the recently completed 2007 sampling program.

Bonaparte is funding the program and is making use of De Beers‘ diamond sampling vessel to develop an indicated resource for the project.

The companies have been mining from the 63,000 carats indicated resource since January of this year.

In all, the joint venture has found seven new diamond deposits with its recent drill program and it plans to incorporate them into production by early in 2008.

Total sales up to the end of October came to US$3.8 million from 17,455 carats at an average price of US$217.69 per carat.

Diamond production improved in October to 4,864 diamonds weighing 1,894 carats compared to 1,618 carats in September. Total production up to the end of October for the project is 42,827 diamonds weighing 18,139 carats at an average size of 0.42 carats per stone.

In Toronto on Dec. 7, Diamond Field’s shares were up 9% or 1 to 12 on roughly 70,000 shares traded.