Paragon Diamonds: Test Sale Confirms Demand for Lemphane Goods

(IDEX Online News) – Paragon Diamonds has sold a number of diamonds from its Lemphane operation in Lesotho to test market demand for goods.

Fancy yellow diamonds discovered during last year’s bulk sampling program were valued as high as $2,500 per carat.

The company is preparing to go into initial production, with the first stage seeing the removal of one million tonnes of ore.

Paragon Chairman Philip Falzon Sant Manduca said: "With stage-one production at Lemphane fast approaching, the successful sale of diamonds demonstrates management's focus on ensuring all relevant stages in the production and sales of diamonds have been tried and tested.

“This ensures that Paragon hits the ground running once mining and distribution operations commence in the first quarter of next year.

“Based on our excellent diamond mining address and the work we have carried out to date, we are highly confident Lemphane will provide Paragon with a source of large high value diamonds for years to come.”

Paragon reported “significant progress” sourcing, designing and approving an advanced processing plant using the latest X-ray recovery technology.

"The current advances in this technology have proved highly successful at other mining operations, increasing recovery of larger stones and significantly enhancing the project economics," Sant Manduca added.