Botswana Diamonds buys Alrosa's stake in Sunland JV, talks with new partner progress

Aim-listed Botswana Diamonds (BOD) has completed the acquisition of Russian diamond miner Alrosa’s 50% interest in the Sunland Minerals joint venture (JV), giving BOD full ownership of the project.

BOD on Thursday also announced that negotiations were under way with a potential new JV partner – a large diamond producer that is interested in acquiring 50% of the project and which has a strong exploration team in place.

Drilling at the Sunland JV is anticipated to start in the first half of 2019, once talks with the new partner have been finalised, said BOD chairperson John Teeling.

BOD stated that changes had taken place at board level at Alrosa in 2016 and 2017, causing a change in emphasis, with early-stage exploration JVs becoming less of a priority than production and marketing.

The Sunland JV was established in 2014 to test existing Alrosa exploration technology on BOD’s large database. The logic being that new technology and new approaches to exploration could identify new targets – ideally large diamond-bearing kimberlites under the Kalahari sands.