Releasing its interim financial results for the six months ended 31 December 2016 Botswana Diamonds plc reported a total comprehensive profit of £ 61,000 for the period. However, this was after accounting for foreign exchange gains amounting to £ 197,000. Excluding this, the loss after taxation for the Company stood at £ 136,000 for the six months ended December 31, 2016. For the same period of the previous year, loss after taxation was £ 161,000; and total comprehensive loss for that period amounted to £ 274,000.

Loss per share basic and diluted for the six months ended 31 December 2016 amounted to 0.04p as compared to a loss of 0.07p in the same period of the previous year.

Meanwhile, the Botswana Diamonds noted a number of the Company’s highlights   during the period. Primarily amongst them was James Campbell joining as Managing Director in December 2016.

The Company   “entered into a phased earn-in agreement” with Vutomi Mining Pty Ltd ("Vutomi"), a late stage diamond explorer in South Africa.

Botswana Diamonds added: “The Company agreed with the board of Maibwe, our joint venture in the Kalahari desert in Botswana, that Botswana Diamonds would drill verification holes following the encouraging results from 2015.”

Apart from this, a work programme for the Orapa and Gope licences in Botswana was drawn up in agreement with Alrosa.

Finally, Botswana Diamonds announced that it had raised “£525,000 (before expenses) to fund the exploration activities in February 2017”.