John Teeling’s Botswana Diamonds has reported an operating loss of £472,107 (€552,072) for the 12 months to June 30. This is an increase on the loss of £391,225 (€457,491) reported the prior year.
The company is focused on Botswana and South Africa, in particular, the geology at the Kaapvall craton which straddles the border between the two countries. In its annual results, the company said it is evolving from a pure diamond explorer to a diamond producer. It added that it has an expectation “that one or more of our advanced projects will in the near future potentially turn into a diamond mine.” Administrative expenses for the year increased to £402,089 (€470,195) from £356,831 (€417,271).
In January, the company raised £363,000 through the issue of 60,500,000 new ordinary shares of 0.25p each at a price of 0.60p per share to provide additional working capital and fund development costs. Each placing share has one warrant attached with the right to subscribe for one new ordinary share at 0.6p per share for a period of two years from 23 January 2021. In May 11,000,000 warrants were exercised at a price of 0.60p per warrant for £66,000.
Botswana Diamonds reported a find of four high-quality diamonds from drill samples at its Thorny River prospect in South Africa in August. The company said that the four high-quality diamonds and what it described as abundant kimberlitic indicators were recovered from drill samples at the recently discovered River Kimberlite Extension at Thorny River in the Limpopo Province of South Africa.
Serial entrepreneur John Teeling founded African Diamonds and created Pan Andean Resources, Minco, African Gold, Persian Gold and West African Diamonds. He is also the owner of the Great Northern Distillery in county Louth, and probably best known to many as the founder of Cooley Distillery, sold to the American bourbon whiskey giant Beam for €73m.
