Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. PGDIF

or is the JV partner Lucara?

[Silverwhere]

Still, Lucara’s success is no surprise to people who follow mining companies, in particular the diamond space. Company CEO William Lamb was born in South Africa and came to Canada to oversee De Beers’ Snap Lake property in the Northwest Territories. Lamb liked living in Canada and went to Vancouver-based miner Lukas Lundin, looking for a job. The scion of the famed Lundin Group, which controls almost $12billion in mining company assets, placed Lamb in charge of Lucara, a non-producing shell company. Lucara’s original investors also included Eira Thomas, perhaps Canada’s most famous female geologist and a renowned diamond hunter.
 
Working on a tip from a friend, Lamb found out about a property in Botswana known as AK6, which was co-owned at the time by De Beers and a company called African Diamonds. Lucara secured the land thanks to a $50-million loan from Lundin and additional funding from Scotiabank. It cost Lucara $150 million to build its sophisticated mine (known as Karowe), and the company found its first diamond soon after the opening in 2012. Since then, the Karowe mine has produced seven diamonds that weigh more than 300 carats—so-called exceptional gems.
 
Technology has played a big role in such discoveries. Lamb explains how Lucara was the first mining operation to implement X-ray transmission machines. “The adoption of these new systems results in lower operating costs that could be a game changer in terms of what the plants of the future may look like,” he says. The technology enables the company to find and sort large stones without breakage or fracturing. Geology, of course, is the other part of the story. “The distinguishing factor for the Karowe mine is the volume of large diamonds recovered as a percentage of the total,” Lamb explains.
 
https://www.canadianbusiness.com/lists-and-rankings/best-stocks/lucara-diamond-lesedi-la-rona/
 
https://www.lucaradiamond.com/investor-info/company/board-of-directors