Eira Thomas Confident Lucara Can Navigate Crisis – by Avi Krawitz (Rapaport Diamond Podcast – June 22, 2020)

https://www.diamonds.net/

RAPAPORT… The diamond mining sector has been hard hit by the coronavirus crisis. There has been a significant drop in demand — when rough sales could even take place — forcing miners to reconsider their production programs for 2020.

However, Lucara Diamond Corp. appears cautiously confident that it has the balance sheet, the sales platform, and the right product mix at its high-value Karowe mine in Botswana, to manage through the crisis.

In a June 16 interview as part of Rapaport’s ‘Recovery Webinar Series’, CEO Eira Thomas outlined her assessment of the diamond market and the company’s plans.

How has Covid-19 affected Lucara’s operations?

We are fortunate in that we’re a very small producer, with [output of] around 400,000 carats a year, which we sell at four quarterly tenders and through Clara, our digital sales platform.

We were declared an essential service by the government of Botswana, which meant that our Karowe mine has been able to operate throughout this period. We had to put in a number of new protocols with respect to social distancing and hygiene, and about one-third of our workforce is working from home. So we’ve been able to more or less meet our production outlook for 2020.

For the rest of this transcript and Podcast: https://www.diamonds.net/news/NewsItem.aspx?ArticleID=65213