BlueRock Diamonds maintains guidance as it progresses expansion plans

BlueRock Diamonds, which owns and operates the Kareevlei Diamond Mine in the Kimberley region of South Africa, updated the market on its expansion plans on Tuesday.

The AIM-traded firm said the crushing circuit would be completed by the end of 2020, and would be commissioned in early January.

It said the rest of the plant was expected to be installed in phases during the first quarter of 2021, to ensure no disruption to operations.

The company’s guidance for the first quarter was to process 130,000 tonnes, making for an increase of 75% over the first quarter of 2020, when it produced 74,000 tonnes.

Its production guidance of between 850,000 and 1,000,000 tonnes for 2021 remained unchanged.

“During the course of the expansion project at Kareevlei the BlueRock management team decided to upgrade certain elements of the plant to ensure optimum production levels going forward,” said executive chairman Mike Houston.

“Whilst this has slowed the expansion project down slightly, we are pleased to say that the decision has had no impact on our internal target for output for the first quarter of 2021, and on the earlier production guidance given for the full year of 2021.”

At 0900 GMT, shares in BlueRock Diamonds were down 1.05% at 47p.