NWT diamond plant re-opens with expert help

Gary Park, Petroleum News Calgary correspondent

A Native-owned diamond manufacturing plant in the Northwest Territories will re-open for business in May after closing last summer.

The Yellowknives First Nations signed a deal April 25 with Schacter and Namdar, one of the world’s largest diamond polishing and processing firms, to revive the money-losing Ndilo plant near Yellowknife, the Northwest Territories capital.

In the process Deton’cho Diamond will be renamed Canada Dene Diamonds.

Schacter and Namdar employs hundreds of workers manufacturing diamonds in New York, Bangkok, Tel Aviv, Botswana, China and South Africa.

Neil Mcfadden, head of the Deton’cho Corp., said members of the Yellowknives First Nations will not be employed initially.

He said the 15 workers, all of them from Europe, are highly qualified to achieve the volumes needed to make the enterprise profitable.

Once the business is re-established, aboriginals will start training at the factory, but Mcfadden said it will take several years to raise the skill levels to the point where the plant will hire a majority of first nations’ people.