William Lamb
CEO: Lucara Diamond Corporation
‘The long-term outlook for diamond prices could mitigate the modelled impact on project cash flows’
WILLIAM Lamb made a good fist of installing calm at Lucara in 2024 after two years of tumult. A quick rewind of Lucara’s 2023-2024 shows a company fighting for survival after unforeseen geological conditions in the underground extension of its diamond mine Karowe, in Botswana, forced former CEO Eira Thomas to delay project commissioning. This raised all sorts of problems, not least of which was having no cash flow as open-pit mineral reserves are forecast to dry up this year. The project’s capital cost also blew out to $683m.
Under Lamb, Karowe underground will now come on stream in 2027, with full ramp-up a year later. A portion of ore mined from the open pit is being stockpiled to tide the group over between mid-2025 and 2027 while other “mitigations” are being sought. A sales agreement for Karowe’s high-value stones of +10.8 carats with Antwerp-based manufacturer HB Antwerp has also been extended by 10 years. This was after Thomas cancelled the previous deal, citing irregularities. Lucara is not out of the woods, not while the diamond market continues to underperform, but the solvency panic appears to be over. Revenue fell below guidance last year but at least Karowe keeps yielding special stones.
In September, it unveiled a 1,094-carat diamond only a month after recovering an astonishing 2,492-carat whopper, the largest since the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond was discovered in 1905. As for the diamond market, Lamb is ever-hopeful it will improve. Were it to do so it would smooth cash flow during the firm’s transition from open pit to underground mining.
LIFE OF WILLIAM
After leaving Lucara in 2018, where he had been CEO and president for 10 years, Lamb set up his own consulting business – WLP – which he ran for five years from Vancouver. He then decamped to Toronto, where he joined Newgen Resource Lending as its partner and chief technical officer. Clearly, he could not but heed the SOS from Lucara. Prior to Lucara, Lamb earned his stripes at De Beers in various technical roles, but life in mining began at Rand Mines, where he helped mine diamonds’ dark alter ego, coal.
