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Firestone Diamonds makes board changes

by Lesotho Times
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Herbert Moyo

FIRESTONE Diamonds, the majority shareholder in the Liqhobong Diamond Mine, has appointed the company’s chief executive officer (CEO), Paul Bosma, to the board of directors with immediate effect.

Mr Bosma was also appointed CEO on 1 July this year.

His appointment as CEO and to the board follow the decision by former CEO, Stuart Brown, to step down as CEO and director of Firestone Diamonds on 30 June 2018. Mr Brown had served five years at Firestone Diamonds.

Firestone’s non-executive chairperson Lucio Genovese announced Mr Bosman’s appointment, saying they looked forward to his positive contributions to the company.

“We are delighted to welcome Paul (Bosma) to the board,” Mr Genovese recently said, adding, “He has already assumed the new role as CEO following a two month handover from Stuart (Brown)”.

“I look forward to his positive contribution to the board debate and wish Stuart all the very best for the future.”
The 50 year-old Mr Bosma
was previously the general manager of Liqhobong Mine and his past directorships were with the Canadian-based mining companies, Hana Mining Limited and Dumas Contracting.

Mr Bosma is a qualified geologist with Bachelor of Science (BSc Honours), Master of Science (MSc) degrees as well as a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business.

He has more than 24 years’ experience in the mining industry and 14 of these were spent in the diamond sector where he worked for De Beers.

Mr Bosma joined Firestone Diamonds in 2014 as the mineral resources manager and he was appointed general manager of Liqhobong Mine in 2016.

He has also previously worked as a vice president for Pala Investments, an international mining investment fund based in Switzerland.

His responsibilities to date have included managing and implementing the commissioning and ramp up to commercial production of the Liqhobong mine, day to day management at the mine.

Firestone is a United Kingdom-based company, which trades on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM). It has 75 percent shares in the Liqhobong Mine and the remaining 25 percent stake is held by the government.

Firestone began full scale commercial production at Liqhobong on 1 July 2017 and has so far recovered 379 716 carats of diamonds (from trial mining and full scale production) including the 134-carat light yellow gem which is its largest find to date. The gem was recovered in October 2017.

Firestone realised US$9.4 million from its first diamond sales of 2018, the company has said.

In a recent statement on its performance since the start of commercial production in July 2017, the company said it had sold 114 887 carats at an average value of US$82 per carat and realised proceeds of US$9.4 million.

The sales were conducted in February this year but the company did not say where this was done.

The company also revealed that it began this year with a cash balance of US$29.7 million.  It had processed 1.9 million tonnes of ore in the six months of operations up to 31 December 2017.

This puts the company on course to surpass its target of processing 3.6 million tonnes per annum.

In our first six months of full scale production at Liqhobong, processing rates were above expectations while costs continued to remain below our targeted levels,” the former CEO, Mr Brown said.

“The company entered the second half of the financial year (January to July 2018) on a strong financial footing, having raised US$25 million at the end of the period while also proposing revised terms on its credit facility as it embarks on its revised mining plan.

“With the strong retail season and the conservative sales volumes from all the major producers towards the end of 2017, we have seen a very encouraging start to 2018 for the rough market, with our first sale of the calendar year realising an average value of US$82 per carat,” Mr Brown added.

In addition, the company reported that there was “zero lost time” from injuries to employees in more than 5.3 million man-hours of work at the Liqhobong Mine.

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