OT Brazil - T.VAA 10-tonne-per-hour plantVaaldiam plans Brauna bulk test
Vaaldiam Resources Ltd (2) (C:VAA)
Shares Issued 83,201,204
Last Close 10/26/2007 $0.77
Monday October 29 2007 - Street Wire
by Will Purcell
Ken Johnson's Vaaldiam Resources Ltd. plans a bulk sample of its Brauna-3 pipe in Bahia, Brazil. The company has been getting good grades from a series of dikes on the Brauna property, but the diamond potential of the bigger dikes remains the key to the project. The program will cost well over $1-million.
The test
Mr. Johnson said Vaaldiam was planning to collect up to 5,000 tonnes of kimberlite from the pipe, which spans an area of about 1.85 hectares. The body has northern and southern lobes that appear connected by a central dike. As well, there is some speculation that Brauna-3 is closely related with the dikes the company is currently sampling.
Vaaldiam is budgeting about $3-million (U.S.) for the Brauna programs, and much of that will go to the big test at Brauna-3. Money is not a big worry as the company completed a $26-million private placement earlier this year and it is now making a profit from its Duas Barras alluvial mine.
Vaaldiam has been drilling delineation drill holes into Brauna-3 this year and the work is showing the body may be larger than first thought. Mr. Johnson said the company was still assessing the geometry of the pipe, but preliminary data from the tests point to the body being larger than two hectares.
Vaaldiam will be processing the sample itself and the company is constructing a 10-tonne-per-hour plant to handle the rock. The company currently is using a 0.3-tonne-per-hour system to recover diamonds from its 20-tonne mini-bulk samples of the Brauna-8 and Brauna-11 dikes. The latter plant would be far too slow to accommodate the big Brauna-3 test.
The encouragement
Vaaldiam completed a mini-bulk test of the body earlier this year and got an encouraging result. About 40 tonnes of kimberlite taken from both lobes of Brauna-3 yielded 8.29 carats, indicating a grade of 0.208 carat per tonne. Although the company used a 0.85-millimetre cut-off for the sample, the size distribution profile was surprisingly coarse. The parcel contained 59 diamonds, which points to an average diamond weight of 0.141 carat.
The central dike was less impressive. Vaaldiam processed 35.8 tonnes of rock and recovered just 2.15 carats, for a grade of 0.060 carat per tonne. The size distribution profile was weaker as well. The parcel contained 32 stones, pointing to an average stone size of 0.067 carat. Still, the small size of the sample leaves significant margins of error.
At two hectares, Brauna-3 could be large enough to attract notice. If the pipe has relatively steep walls, it could contain over 10 million tonnes of kimberlite to a depth of 300 metres, and a grade of one-quarter carat per tonne would give the pipe a potential 2.5 million carats.
The two dike systems also appear to have comparable diamond potential. The company recovered 5.31 carats from 28.2 tonnes of Brauna-11 kimberlite, a rate of 0.19 carat per tonne. The average stone weighed 0.133 carat. The first 16.9 tones of kimberlite from Brauna-8 yielded 6.5 carats, or about 0.38 carat per tonne. Although the average diamond weight was just 0.065 carat, several broken stones likely contributed to the lower value.
De Beers worked the property for years but got disappointing grades in its tests. The diamond giant apparently did not dig through a calcrete cap covering the kimberlites and sampled heavily diluted material near the surface instead. As a result, Vaaldiam was able to pick up a 60-per-cent interest in the play for just $300,000. Later, the company had to shell out about $3.5-million in cash and shares to pry the remaining 40-per-cent interest away from Majescor Resources Inc.
Vaaldiam closed down a cent to 77 cents Friday on 49,800 shares.
© 2007 Canjex Publishing Ltd.