Mining News: Northern Neighbors: Kennady North drills high diamond grades at Faraday

Kennady Diamonds Inc. Feb. 18 reported additional high-grade diamond recovery results from the Faraday 1 kimberlite at the Kennady North project in Northwest Territories. During the winter of 2015, a 0.518-metric-tons sample of kimberlite was recovered by core drilling at Faraday 1. Caustic fusion processing of this sample at the Geoanalytical Laboratories Diamond Services of the Saskatchewan Research Council returned 4.65 carats per metric tons of commercial grade diamonds. The three largest diamonds recovered from the Faraday 1 sample are described as: 1.43 carat off-white, transparent octahedron with no inclusions; 0.13 carat off-white, transparent tetra hexahedron with minor inclusions; and 0.12 carat off-white, transparent tetra hexahedron with minor inclusions. “We are very pleased with the excellent results. Delineation drilling to date has defined the strike of the Faraday 1 kimberlite over about 160 meters, and the pipe remains open on strike to the northwest where core drilling is currently underway,” said Kennady Diamonds President and CEO Patrick Evans said. “The ice-based drilling currently underway at Faraday 1 is designed to continue defining the pipe-like body on strike to the northwest to the point where land-based drilling in the spring/summer will be possible. Following completion of the current series of holes being drilled 40 meters beyond the last major intersects, the core rig will be moved to the southwest of the Faraday 1 kimberlite to test two areas where unexplained volcaniclastic kimberlite was intersected in 2015.” Kennady Diamonds is currently a 550-metric-ton bulk sampling program at the Kelvin North Lobe. The first two of 26 planned large-diameter holes have been completed and more than 34 metric tons of kimberlite has so far been recovered from this deposit. The company said it recovered a diamond in chip samples taken from the first RC hole. The diamond measures about 0.5 millimeters and is a high-quality octahedral.

- Shane Lasley