Rock-Solid Team Goes After Quebec’s First Diamonds

In the cut-and-polished world of diamonds, names like “Round Brilliant,” Princess,” “Marquise,” “Emerald,” “Oval,” “Heart” and “Pear” are common to most people and similarly when it comes to the names of the companies that produce those diamonds, De Beers most often comes to mind.

However, like every industry where the “largest” or “most familiar” names get the bulk of recognition, there are always many others in the same line of work that are as equally dedicated and successful at what they do.

One company that certainly falls into this category when it comes to diamonds is Stornoway Diamond Corporation, a North Vancouver-based company that is also one of the leading diamond explorers in Canada.

With highly prospective diamond exploration pipelines in Nunavut, Ontario, the Northwest Territories, and now especially in Quebec with its Renard project, Stornoway is quickly being recognized around the world as one of the better managed and technically equipped diamond exploration companies in the business.

In fact, the Renard project, a 50/50 joint venture with SOQUEM, a wholly owned subsidiary of Socit gnrale de financement du Qubec (SGF), the industrial and financial holding company for the Province of Quebec, is being touted in headlines and documentaries as having the potential to become “Quebec’s First Diamond Mine.”

And judging by what’s going on at the Renard site, that ‘potential’ is getting closer and closer to a reality as crews continue to drill away at a newly discovered expansion that showed the potential to double or even triple the size of one of the main kimberlite pipes, the Renard 2. An updated NI 43-101 compliant resource is due out in the fall to build on the 7.0 m carats indicated and 4.5 m carats inferred resources, that was released last December.

In other words, the potential is there to not only make Renard the pride of Quebec, but also a newsworthy diamond discovery of worldwide pro- portions. Before that day comes, however, Stornoway says there is still a great deal of work to be done before a mine goes into production.

As mentioned earlier, Stornoway is one of the better managed diamond exploration companies in Canada, if not the world, and before making any announcements pertaining to the Renard project, they did their homework in terms of what the site has to offer.

Stornoway studied the project extensively before its takeover offer of Ashton Mining of Canada in July 2006 who made the original discovery. When it finally started work with SOQUEM in 2007, they were convinced the property, covering 127,715 ha and (somewhat) conveniently located 820 km north of Montreal, 120 km south of the all-weather Trans-Taiga Highway and 150 km south-southeast of Quebec Hydro’s LG-2 generating station, had all of the potential for a major mining operation.

The word “somewhat” was used above because as every mine owner and operator in the world knows, access in and out of a site once it goes into production is critical and once Stornoway learned of the Quebec government’s budgetary plans to support the building a $130 million all-weather road into area, it was full steam ahead on the project.

But as already mentioned, the resources also made the site worth pursing. Again, Renard is situated in a part of Quebec where five episodes of kimberlite emplacement have been identified and the Renard cluster of pipes is part of the Otish event, which took place about 640 million years ago.

Nine kimberlite bodies have been identified within a 2 km2 area along with multiple dykes and to date, almost 573 holes totalling more than 91,000 m have been drilled, mostly diamond and reverse circulation drilling, plus eight geotechnical and hydrological holes.

Bulk sampling included 4,000 tonnes recovered through an underground sampling program, and 3,521 tonnes from the surface. To retrieve the underground samples, a total of 739 m of development, including a portal, ramp and drifts were excavated to a depth of 55 m and a 10-tonne-per-hour Dense Media Separation (DMS) plant made by Bond was assembled on the site to produce a concentrate. Diamond recovery from the concentrate was conducted at Stornoway’s labs back in North Vancouver.

In addition to its findings in the lab, Stornoway also commissioned a Preliminary Economic Assessment on the initial NI 43-101 resource to focus on four years of concurrent open pit mining at 2,000 t/d and underground mining at 1,500 t/d. The four-year initial period was followed by more than two years of underground mining at 3,500 t/d.

The planned pits are to extend between 90 and 125 m in depth with the overall strip ratio being estimated at 3:36:1. Lakes in the immediate area will require minor dyke construction and drainage. Underground mining will utilize blasthole stoping and cement rock fill to address ground conditions.

Crushing is proposed using high pressure grinding roll technology. The project’s initial Preliminary Assessment suggested the project will produce 970,000 ct/a at an average price of US$117/ct with 2.5 million carats derived from open pit mining and 3.3 million carats from underground operations.

An updated Preliminary Assessment taking into account the expanded resource from this summer’s drilling is due out by year end.