Lucapa Diamond Company and their subsidiary, Australian Natural Diamonds has entered a 14-year agreement with Armour Energy to supply gas to power the Merlin Diamond Project site at the McArthur Basin in the Northern Territory. This gas supply deal will see the site reopen and re-establish diamond mining operations at the historic site, giving it a massive leg-up in its journey to completion.
“This heads of agreement with Lucapa represents a significant opportunity to further appraise, develop and commercialise the Glyde gas discovery in the Northern Territory,” Amour Energy chief executive, Christian Lange says. “The agreement underpins the accelerated pathway to commercialisation of this shallow, conventional gas asset and reinforces the exciting conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon potential of the McArthur Basin in the Northern Territory and our ability to provide this valuable resource to the domestic market and represent first production from the Basin.”
Lupara managing director, Stephen Wetherall says, “The prospect of the availability of gas from a source less than 20km from the Merlin Diamond Project rather than diesel trucked from Darwin, potentially as part of a solar gas hybrid power solution, is of significant interest to Lucapa from both an environmental and project economics point of view,” The Merlin Diamond Project site is the home of Australia’s largest diamond which was
uncovered in 2002 from the Gareth pipe which totalled to 104 carats. This rough diamond was named Jungiila Bunajina by the Traditional Owners, this means ‘star meteorite dreaming stone’. Since then, Australian Natural Diamonds acquired the site in 2021 for $8.5m AUD. The Merlin site consists of a 24 km2 mineral lease and 283 km2 exploration licence which encompasses the mineral lease.
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