SearchGold finds large diamonds at Mandala

Montreal-based SearchGold Resources (RSG-V) has recovered three large diamonds from its Mandala III North deposit, part of the Mandala River diamond project in Guinea, West Africa.

The stones, which weighed 21.47 carats, 10.72 carats and 7.26 carats, were recovered during bulk sampling on the company’s 80.75%-owned exploitation permit area.

Bulk sampling of the Mandala and N’keleyani flats is under way, and new excavator and screening unit were recently shipped in from Canada. A sorting room equipped with dual grease tables is expected to arrive in early May. Operating costs at Mandala will likely fall now that all leased machinery has been returned in favour of its own equipment.

The Mandala River permit covers three known alluvial diamond deposits, and half of a fourth one that contains an indicated resource of 615,000 carats of diamonds with an average grade of 0.52 carat per sq. metre. The resource is contained in an area measuring 1.2 sq. km.

SearchGold’s Mandala project is 40 km south of Trivalence Mining‘s (TMI-V) 85%-owned Aredor alluvial diamond mine. Aredor previously surrendered a 255.6-carat diamond that sold for more than US$10 million, and a 70.1-carat diamond that fetched just short of US$2.8 million.

SearchGold plans a third diamond delivery to Antwerp at the end of April.

By mid-February, SearchGold had recovered more than 8,000 gem and near-gem quality diamonds, weighing a combined 1,795.16 carats, from the Mandala III alluvial diamond deposit. The haul includes 63 top gem-quality stones (exceeding 1 carat) totalling 105.82 carats. The stones are valued at US$622.26 per carat. An additional mixed parcel of white diamonds weighing 499.22 carats was valued at US$55.40 per carat.

The mining of basal gravels at Mandala turned up two new, sub-vertical kimberlite dykes oriented similarly to other dykes in the area. SearchGold has stockpiled a 200-ton sample of kimberlite from the dykes for diamond content analysis.