Stellar Diamonds in its operational update from trial mining at its 75% owned, five hectare Baoulé kimberlite pipe in Guinea, intimated that a  55.64 carat diamond had been recovered from the kimberlite recently, which is the largest stone discovered to date at Baoulé. A total of 610 stones greater than 1 carat have been discovered including numerous gem diamonds of up to 12 carats in size, the Company indicated.

The Company said that trial mining has yielded a total of 8,043 carats to date at an average grade of 12.7 cpht; and that to date the revenue from sales of Baoulé diamond stood at US$ 700,644 for 5,173 carats.

Stellar Chief Executive, Karl Smithson, who is currently undertaking a site visit at Baoulé with fellow director Hansjörg Plaggemars, commented:  “We are extremely encouraged to have recovered this 55 carat stone as it confirms that the Baoulé pipe is a possible source of the large diamonds which have been mined in alluvial deposits downstream of the Baoulé pipe for many years, several of which have been +100 carats in size. We will carefully examine the stone which appears to have a ‘boart’ exterior and a potentially better quality diamond on the interior. Gem quality diamonds continue to be recovered from the Baoulé kimberlite up to 12 carats in size.”

The Company also indicated that its objective was to mine and process 100,000 tonnes of kimberlite and said that the target resource of 3 million carats at Baoulé was based on previous drilling and diamond results to date which would be confirmed on completion of trial mining.

“With approximately 63% of our trial mining and processing at Baoulé now complete, subject to the Company having sufficient working capital, we are currently on track to finalise the trial mining and processing of 100,000 tonnes in Q3 and look forward to providing further updates in due course,” concluded Smithson.