Paragon Done Scoping, Moving to Mining Diamonds

Diamond company Paragon has completed the scoping phase at its concession in the southern African nation of Lesotho and is looking to start up the trial mining phase there, Mining Weekly reports. The results of Paragon's studies thus far indicate that the Lemphane plot can produce rough diamonds for a decade as an open-pit mine.
 
Paragon believes that they will find 27 million tons of kimberlite when they plumb depths of 280 meters below ground level. After a half-year-long trial mining period in which they expect to extract 100,000 tons of material, they intend to spend between a year to a year and a half constructing the open-pit mine. After that, the first two years of production should produce 1.5 million tons annually, and the rest of the decade of projected decade of production will yield 3 million tons annually. Paragon anticipates spending approximately $15 on every ton, according to Mining Weekly.