Shear starts diamond processing at Nunavut’s Jericho mine

The Jericho mine in western Nunavut is starting to produce diamonds again from stockpiles of rock left at the mine site, shown here. (FILE PHOTO)

Shear Diamonds Ltd. says it’s begun processing diamonds from the stockpiles at its Jericho diamond mine in Nunavut.

About 3,500 carats have been recovered from 358 tonnes after the first 10 full days of processing, the company reported May 1.

For the next 10 months, Shear plans to focus on the processing of these stockpiles.

Following the required diamond valuation process by a Canadian government valuator, scheduled for late May 2012, these and all future diamonds produced from Jericho are to be delivered to Tache Company N.V., Shear’s diamond marketing partner.

Shear’s goals for the processing of the stockpiles are to:

• demonstrate that a significant number of diamonds went un-recovered during Jericho’s previous operation and that these diamonds are recoverable;

• generate cash flow to support operations in 2012 while sources of funding for achieving full commercial production at Jericho; and,

• acquire key processing knowledge which can be applied to future production at Jericho.

“It is incredibly gratifying for the entire Shear team to see the first recovered diamonds from Jericho since its shutdown in early 2008,” said Shear’s chief executive officer Julie Lassonde. “We are seeing daily improvements in tonnage processed as well as recoveries as we continue to ramp up during the re-commissioning of the recovery portion of the diamond recovery plant.”

Shear bought the mothballed Jericho property from the insolvent remains of the Tahera Diamond Corp. in August 2010.

The Jericho mine, which last operated from 2006 to 2008, was Nunavut’s first diamond mine, located 420 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife.

From 2006 to 2008, the mine produced 780,000 carats of diamonds from 1.2 million tonnes of kimberlite mined from its open pit operation.

When Shear bought Jericho, it acquired a recovery plant, maintenance facility, fuel farm, offices, accommodation for 225 staff, an open pit and an estimated three million carats of diamonds underground.

After acquiring the site, Shear announced a plan to extract diamonds from stockpiles of ore that Tahera left behind.

Then, last December, Shear struck a deal with a Belgian diamond dealer, Taché, that will give Shear the cash it needs to recover and sell diamonds from the mothballed site’s existing stockpiles.

Shear has so far achieved a maximum processing rate of 50 tonnes over a 12-hour shift and hopes to hit approximately 80 tonnes per day with an average recovery rate of approximately 10 carats per tonne as it moves to 24-hour operations in the coming weeks.