Shear moves ahead to de-mothball Jericho

Plans include plant tests and draining water from the pit

By NUNATSIAQ NEWS

Shear Diamonds Ltd. plans to start performance tests in the diamond recovery plant and conduct plant feed assessments at the Jericho Diamond Mine by the end of July.

The tests will be performed in accordance with all current regulatory authorizations and approvals, including its Type A Water Licence, the company said in a July 13 news release.

Shear also plans to start pit de-watering later this month. The pit has not been pumped out since Tahera suspended operations there in June 2008.

“Test processing of small amounts of stockpiled material through the diamond recovery plant will give Shear a better understanding of how this plant may be able to process existing varied stockpiled ore at site,” said Julie Lassonde, Shear’s chairman and chief executive officer.

“These tests will provide Shear both with a parcel of diamonds indicative of the recovery reject pile and with key information as to how to modify the plant to aid in diamond recovery. These tests are at the heart of understanding how to restart operations at Jericho.”

Shear submitted a Type A Water Licence renewal application to the Nunavut Water Board last February.

A technical meeting and pre-hearing conference were held in Cambridge Bay last month and on June 24 the NWB approved the pre-hearing conference decision.

A public hearing is scheduled for October 12 and 13 in Kugluktuk.

When Shear bought Jericho two years ago, 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.

From 2006 to 2008, the mine, 420 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife, produced 780,000 carats of diamonds from 1.2 million tonnes of kimberlite mined from its open pit operation.

More than $200 million was invested in the development of the Jericho operations including the construction of a 2,000-tonne per day diamond recovery plant, maintenance facility, fuel farm, offices and a living complex for 225 workers.

Diamonds left in tailings were one of Jericho’s main problems: Jericho’s processing plant apparently didn’t work properly, shooting out tonnes of useable and saleable diamonds along with waste rock.

This year Shear plans to sink $4 million into exploration at the mine site and surrounding properties. Its goal: to shore up the known diamond resources, with the aim of doubling the quantities and the previous nine-year lifespan for the mine.

Shear’s dream is to see Jericho become a “small, nice” mine, unlike Diavik’s diamond mine in the Northwest Territories, which is 20 times larger.

When Jericho shut down in 2008, about 200 Inuit from the Kitikmeot had jobs connected with the mine.

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