Venus Metals plans to begin extracting diamonds from Smoke Creek, near the Argyle Diamond mine in WA, “as soon as possible”.
The company has just secured nine prospecting licences in parts of Smoke Creek and has a further 13 prospecting license applications pending.
The 1979 discovery of alluvial diamonds in Smoke Creek led to the discovery of the Argyle diamond deposit, which currently supplies over 90 per cent of the world’s pink diamonds.
According to Venus Metals, the site, which lies adjacent to the primary deposit that hosts Argyle’s current mine, has an “inferred resource” of five million carats.
In a statement announcing its licence acquisition, the company said its Smoke Creek alluvial diamond deposit “potentially provides a new source of genuine, Kimberley Process compliant, issue-free Australian diamonds including the rare pinks”.
“Venus plans to extract diamonds as soon as possible to establish quality and value distributions.”
“Argyle Diamonds operated an alluvial mine in Smoke Creek for many years, supplementing the hard rock AK1 production with the alluvial product which had a better quality distribution,” said Venus Metals.